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EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



Ube Century Social Science Series 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



BY 

DAVID SNEDDEN 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1922 



Copyright, 1923, by 
The Century Co. 






Printed in U. S. A. 



AUG 15 72 

©Ci,A677852 ^, 



To 

ANNA O'KEEFE SNEDDEN 

PIONEER, MOTHER, THINKER 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/educationalsocio01sned 



TO THE READER 

The Red Indian, as our frontiersman forefathers found him, knew 
much about weather, woods, prairies, and wild animals. Hunters and 
trappers of European extraction, living in and on the wilderness, also 
came in time to know much of its secrets. Man cannot live day by day 
in any kind of an environment without acquiring a large store of the 
wisdom of experience. Much more will this be so if he have to live 
actively, competitively, adaptively, in thqt environment. 

Every reader of this book already knows at least as much about 
societies as Indian and immigrant hunter knew about forests and wild 
animals. You have lived since birth in social groups ; and you have lived 
often and much in vital relations of cooperation and of striving within 
them. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you already possess much 
social wisdom. Technically, you are not a sociologist any more than the 
Indian, rich in experience and nature lore, was a botanist or ornithologist. 
But you are rich in the raw materials out of which sociology is made. If 
you have some of the qualities of the student, some powers of reflection, 
analysis and synthesis, and some standards of evaluation — if you have 
these a word, a question, a formula, or a simple principle stated will often 
be sufficient to cause large areas of your experience to fall into order, and 
to interpret itself as scientific data, leading easily, perhaps, to compre- 
hensions of generalization and law. 

The least experienced reader of this book also knows much about 
education. All your life you have been under educational agencies and 
influences — in your home, in the neighborhood, at school, in church, and 
while at work. Here, too, you are the possessor of a wealth of data — 
bits of experience, prejudices, beliefs, generalizations. Much of this may 
be unassimilated. Much of it may be held like seeds in storage so dry 
and cold that no germination is possible. But it is, nevertheless, all very 
valuable material for thinker and student to use — and every teacher, 
actual or potential, is such a thinker and student perforce. 

This book has been planned, therefore, for readers known to be 
already unwittingly rich in certain kinds of sociological and educational 
experience. They are already members of many social groups; they have 



viii TO THE READER 



shared in uncounted social processes both as controlled and as controllers 
— as subject and as agent ; they have always lived in a very net-work of 
social relationships, including the educational, which are capable of being 
disentangled and ordered, very much as we can imagine early botanists 
ordering and interpreting the countless data of the flora all about them. 

At the beginning of each chapter is a series of questions, sometimes 
arriplified into "problems," No reader can answer all of these, but every 
reader can give provisional answers to many. Some are still unanswerable 
in any strictly scientific sense by the sociologist, but every day men some- 
where have to guess at answers in order to proceed with living and with 
work. 

This is in fact chiefly a book of problems. Diesigned primarily for 
teachers or for persons in the later stages of preparation for teaching, it 
includes discussions of the many problems of educational values and 
objectives with which makers of text-books, courses, and curricula are 
now concerned. 

Many of the problems here discussed are, obviously, of a nature that 
will require the time and efiforts of specialists for their final solution. The 
rank and file of teachers cannot be expected to do the experimental work, 
nor to effect the administrative readjustments that are required, either to 
solve the problems indicated, or to carry into practice the solutions tenta- 
tively reached. Why then should a book of this character be prepared 
for, and recommended to, teachers? The reasons are to be found chiefly 
in the present stage of evolution of education. It is not practicable yet 
to get on in education in the same way that we get on in medicine, engineer- 
ing, agriculture, navigation, or even in the conduct of war. In these fields 
special agencies of investigation, experimentation, and publicity have been 
developed and speedy application of their findings can readily be made. 

Notwithstanding that the amount of money spent upon the public 
schools of the United States now approximates one thousand million 
dollars annually, education is necessarily far behind those other fields of 
organized human effort as respects facilities for research and means and 
disposition for the application of the results of research. As yet, we 
possess very few genuine experimental schools and, with rare exceptions, 
these are not well organized and sustained. Systematic study of educa- 
tional problems must still be undertaken largely by private and, often, 
individual effort. Even the very norms and methods of that systematic 
research are as yet largely lacking. 

How then does progress come in education? It comes by much the 
same methods that in former decades or centuries prevailed in the other 



TO THE READER ix 



fields of human activity named above. As formerly in those fields so 
now in education we find ourselves in the presence of a great body of 
customs and traditions, some probably valid, many probably invalid. 

From time to time there springs up in some quarter a conviction that 
changes are necessary. Certain persons begin to agitate for these changes. 
If their enthusiasm is great, their endurance strong, and they are able to 
give convincing reasons for the faith that is in them, they quickly win 
supporters, and presently a well defined social movement is visible. This 
encourages experiments, many of them at first crude and poorly planned. 
Presently these begin to reveal whether or not the new idea or movement 
has sound foundations. Social imitation takes place, progressive indi- 
viduals in backward communities constitute themselves propagandists, and 
gradually progress results. The history of the evolution of education to 
date is filled with examples of these processes — as is also the story of 
progress in the earlier stages of medicine, agriculture, government, and 
transportation. 

The purpose, therefore, of inviting teachers to consider a number of 
the problems that probably will require close examination and solution 
during the next generation, is chiefly to create among them, particularly 
the more progressive, a body of professional public opinion, both as to 
the character of these problems and as to urgency of their early considera- 
tion. These teachers can in turn create public opinion among those lay- 
men with whom they associate, and especially among parents and others 
having keen interest in the advancement of education. Probably one of 
the most important results to be achieved at the present time is a clear 
and definite formulation of these problems. So far as practicable educa- 
tional forecasts ought always to distinguish between the conditions and 
practices which we expect to continue in their present form, and those 
other conditions and practices which we expect to see either profoundly 
modified or else supplanted by new conditions and practices. 



SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS USING THIS BOOK 

This book has been prepared primarily for persons who are now 
teachers or who expect soon to become teachers. But it is important that 
the book be properly used by instructors if it is to fulfil its purpose. 

That purpose is primarily to extend the educator's professional vision 
and to multiply and deepen his professional appreciations. This is not a 
guide-book to management or methods of teaching. It is not a book to be 
studied rigorously and with a view to passing formal examinations. It is 



TO THE READER 



expected to enhance professional culture and ideals ; and to that end it 
should be read and discussed willingly, appreciatively, and interestedly, 
or else not at all. 

In the early pages of each chapter will be found many "leading" ques- 
tions. Only a very exceptional student can or should "take" all of these 
for reflection and report. Better that each student select or be assigned 
a few, and then, later, in conference let the findings be "pooled" in 
discussion. 

The text itself, apart from the questions, is designed mainly to be sug- 
gestive rather than logically complete. Educational Sociology, though in 
a sense a very juvenile science, is already too comprehensive to admit of 
successful compression into a single text-book, at least if any of its 
flavoring juices are to be preserved. 

Advanced students, and experienced teachers preparing for adminis- 
trative work, who use this book for more rigorous professional purposes 
— namely for guidance in curriculum planning and the critical comparative 
evaluation of subjects of study and courses — are expected to find large 
numbers of initial problems of educational objectives suggested here. 
Theirs will then be the responsibility of prosecuting analysis and con- 
structive thinking farther than the circumstances attending the preparation 
of this book now warrant. 

Appended to each chapter are some references, selected largely because 
of a certain availability and timeliness, which may well be taken up, some- 
times for supplemental reading, and occasionally as a basis for monthly 
or even term reports. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL GROUPS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Making of a People 3 

II. What is Sociology? 11 

III. What is Educational Sociology? 23/ 

IV. Societies or Social Groups 39 

--* V. Family Groups 52 

VI. NEIGHEGRIIOOn COMMUNITY GrOUPS 68 

VII. Urban Community Groups 92 

VIII. Provincial and National Community Groups loi 

IX. Economic Groups 115 

X. Religious Groups 130 

XL Associations and Parties 140 

— XII. Fellowship Groups 149 

PART II 
SOCIAL FORCES, PROCESSES, AND VALUES 

XIII.' Social Forces and Processes 159 

XIV. Geographic Environment 170 

XV. Individuation and Socialization • 181 

XVI. Social Control 189 

XVII. Cooperation, Conflict, and Competition 198 

XVIII. Domination and Democratization 211 

XIX. Miscellaneous Social Processes 223 

XX. Social Values 234 

XXI. The Major Social Values 250 

XXII. Social Efficiency and Progress 276 

PART III 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION 

XXIII. Education as a Means of Social Efficiency 295 

XXIV. The Objectives of Education — Growth, Play, and Wcrk . . 309 

xi 



xn 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXV. The Objectives of School Education 321 

XXVI. The Objectives of Education — Methods of Analysis . . . 336 

XXVII. The Evolution of Education 350 

XXVIII. ^Physical Education: Sociological Foundations 360 

XXIX. Vocational Education : Sociological Foundations .... 376 

XXX. Social Education : Sociological Foundations 395 

^ XXXI. Cultural Education : Sociological Foundations 416 

XXXII. Miscellaneous General Objectives of Education Analyzed . 429 



PART IV 

THE SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE 
SCHOOL SUBJECTS 

XXXIII. The English Language Studies 441 

XXXIV. The Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures .... 459 
XXXV. The Ancient Languages and Literatures 473 

XXXVI. English Literature 481 

XXXVIL The Mathematical Studies 493 

XXXVIII. The Natural Science Studies . . .' 512 

XXXIX. Geography 527 

XL. Civic Education and the History Studies 538 

XLI. Civic Education Through the Social Sciences and Other 

Means 5Si 

XLII. The Mental Sciences 558 

XLIII. The Graphic and Plastic Arts 567 

' XLIV. Music . . . ; 582 

XLV. The Practical Arts 59^ 

XLVI. Vocational Guidance 606 

XLVII. Vocational Education — General 622 

XLVIII. Agricultural Vocational Education 632 

XLIX. Commercial Vocational Education 6-17 

L. Home-making Vocational Education 651 

LI. Industrial Vocational Education • 665 

LII. Physical Education ^7^ 

Bibliography oSi 

Index 685 



PART I 
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL GROUPS 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

CHAPTER I 
THE MAKING OF A PEOPLE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE reader of this book already knows much about America and the 
making of that people which we call "Americans." He knows that 
hardly more than three hundred years ago the only Americans were the 
Indians, whom the invaders found it necessary to displace or absorb in 
order to build up their civilization. He knows that all our beginnings 
were forced to be in most ways simple, crude, and even extemporized, 
because of the necessities of pioneering. But he also knows that the 
early settlers brought with them some of the best tools, much of the 
best knowledge, and nearly all the serviceable arts of Europe. The new- 
comers were old, or rather advanced, in culture, whereas, the Indians 
were young or retarded; No wonder the latter were forced into a 
retreat that continued almost to the end of the nineteenth century ! 

The reader also knows much about how "we, the people of the United 
States," made and spread our first settlements ; battled for security and 
independence ; built roads, cleared forests, and settled to the westward ; 
invented machinery ;' grew wealthy ; and finally came to have a voice in 
world affairs. The greatness and wonder of this drama reveals itself to 
most of us only in fragments. If one has read much he recalls how a 
Berkeley, a Cooper, a Parkman, a Whitman, a Turner, a Winston 
Churchill, a Vachel Lindsay, a Meredith Nicholson, or some other inter- 
preter has opened to him a vista, seen as through a window, of the great 
unfolding procession by which we have come to be what we are.^ 

The informed reader is abundantly prepared to think of America, first 
in cross-section; and then, if curiosity is aroused over some social phe- 
nomenon, to inquire into its genesis, its evolutional history. Questions 
like the following, which can readily be multiplied, should open the way 
toward sociological interpretations of "The Making of a People." 

I. As compared with other "large nations," is America relatively homogene- 
ous as respects : speech, religion, manners, political beliefs, ambitions, culture ? 

^ The interested reader will find in the fifty pocket-size volumes of the "Yale 
Chronicles Series" accurate, vivid, and very readable accounts of many of the stages 
and personalities in the evolution of America. 

3 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



Why? What are noteworthy exceptions, and how are these to be explained 
historically? What does, or what ought, the word "Americanization" mean? 
What sociological reasons prompted Congress recently to impose a variety 
of restrictions on immigration? What would be your reasons for favoring 
(or opposing) such action? 

2. How does America compare with other strong nations as respects : 
wealth; facilities for internal transportation — railroads, highways, automo- 
biles; newspaper readers; literacy; children between twelve and eighteen 
years of age in school; general healthf ulness ; general culture; criminality? 

3. Out of your general knowledge, what seem to you to have been the 
effects of : New England's climate, soil, and access to the sea on the char- 
acter, occupations, and culture of (a) her settlers up to 1815; (b) the sub- 
sequent Irish immigrants; and (c) the later immigrants from the Con- 
tinent? How have the climate, soil, and other geographic conditions of 
the South Atlantic states affected the speech, manners, occupations, and 
religion of (a) the original whites and (&) the imported negroes? 

What are some of the things that have been done to and by America 
because of: the Mississippi River; the fertile Mississippi Valley; the forests 
of Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington; the gold, silver, and 
copper mines of the western states; the deserts of the Southwest; the 
"frontier"; the great coal and oil deposits? 

4. What proportion of our people are now urban residents? What seem 
to you the real advantages of urban life (convivial, vocational, healthful, 
cultural) to: a child of ten; an unmarried man of thirty of very superior 
mental ability; a married man of thirty of low-grade mental ability, good 
physical strength, and poor enterprise ; a cultivated single woman with a 
substantial fixed income? 

Can people with no capital and little special skill "find work" more readily in 
cities or in rural areas ? How much faster would you estimate that food produc- 
tion increased than rural population during the last century, thanks to the use 
of farm machinery? 

Are we to expect good or bad, or partly good and partly bad, consequences 
from the "urbanization of our people" ? Give reasons. 

5. What are some strongly established "American" standards or ideals as to : 
the monogamous family; freedom of divorce; care and education of children; 
wage-earning work of married women; freedom of women to vote, to work, 
and "to do other things just as men do" ? What seem to you to be some bad and 
some good tendencies in American family life ? What are some probable socio- 
logical causes of these ? 

6. What useful functions are served in America by such voluntary or- 
ganizations as : political parties ; women's clubs ; Rotary and other men's clubs ; 
secret societies and fraternities ; labor unions ; social "sets" or cliques ; Granges 
and other farmers' associations; organizations of various classes of teachers, 



THE MAKING OF A PEOPLE 



doctors, business men, research specialists, writers, and hundreds of other 
classes ? 

If it seems that collective help must be provided for some afHicted class, a 
new line of thought promoted, or a new political object, how do we proceed? 
Are these methods indicative of too little, too much, or just enough "democ- 
racy" ? 

7. "Half the business of the United States is done by corporations." Do 
corporations seem to you to be on the whole "good" or "bad" for America? 
What kinds of harm do the worst of them do? What kinds of useful service 
do the best of them render? 

Are we ahead of, or behind, the other advanced nations as respects : use 
of power-driven machinery ; multiplication of useful inventions ; use of "semi- 
skilled" labor? 

8. Do modern farmers produce relatively less or more of what they consume 
than earlier farmers? Why does America specialize so greatly in farm pro- 
duction by localities? Where and what are the chief centers for production 
of raw cotton; copper; iron ore; smelted iron and steel; shoes; watches; 
oranges; apples; range cattle; firearms; automobiles? 

9. Recall some of the noteworthy stages through which we have evolved 
our international relationships. What have been some consequences to us 
in the "making of a people" of : the British and colonial conquest of the 
French ; our attainment of national independence ; the development of Federal 
government; the reluctance of Anglo-Saxon stocks to intermarry with natives; 
our public land system; the Monroe Doctrine; the "westward" movement? 

AMERICA AS A COMPLEX SOCIETY 

Hundreds of thousands of social groups make up American society. 
There are more than 15,000,000 families. Religious denominations and 
sects run into scores. Every business corporation is a kind of society, as 
well as every factory, railroad system, ship, coal mine, and farm. Tem- 
porarily, at least, the pupils of every school room compose little societies, 
whilst those of the "institution" — the elementary or high school, liberal 
arts or professional college, trade or technical school — compose large and 
still more enduring "societies." 

Throughout the land are numberless social groups in which member- 
ship is voluntary and which are usually formed by congenial spirits to 
promote fairly well defined objects. Political parties, social clubs, asso- 
ciations of scholars, "societies" to set machinery in motion for some 
philanthropic object — their name is legion. A democratic social order 
seems to be no less prolific of "societies" than of free discussion.^ 

' Consult Ross, Principles of Sociology, Part I, The Social Population, 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



The families of a rural neighborhood have at least "acquaintance" 
relationships with each other; and sometimes, especially in the older 
sections, they continue from the past or develop new organizations to 
meet needs for other "community" relationships. Every rural neighbor- 
hood is a kind of society, even when, as in many western states, its 
strictly local "community" interdependencies seem almost to have reached 
the vanishing point. 

But small towns and cities are not only societies; they have so many 
local "common" functions, private and public, that they become real 
communities. The American state is a "community," too, since its citizens 
have common responsibilities for the enactment of legislation, the execu- 
tion of governmental functions, and the collective discharge of the many 
other responsibilities that have long impelled men to call this kind of 
community a "commonwealth." 

Embracing the states and colonial possessions is the Federal Union, 
the national government, with its constitutionally designated "community" 
governmental functions, as well as many others of a non-governmental 
character. Patriots cherish the "nation" because it is big enough and 
strong enough, not only to give us dignity and power in "the community 
of nations," but also to promote the more far-reaching forms of control, 
cooperation, and progressiveness among us all at home. 

Most of the social groups just named are visible even to the less 
imaginative. They are compact, and have clear boundaries. Nearly 
always their members are keenly conscious of their membership, just as 
they well know the names, leaders, headquarters, symbols, and ideals of 
the respective groups to which they owe loyalty, service, and chastening 
criticism. 

In our democratic society there exist countless other "groups," largely 
invisible and not easily to be bounded — for it must be remembered that 
where men mutually affect each other, or become even in obscure ways 
"interdependent," there we have the social relationships that create actual, 
though unseen, perhaps unfelt, social groups. The buyer and the seller 
in any commercial transactions are, for that purpose even if for no other, 
socially related. Between "original producer" and "ultimate consumer" 
in most modern commercial transactions — involving the transfer of coal 
or coffee or watches, or sermons or newspapers, or transportation, or 
learning — there are often many intermediaries to transport, refine, inspect, 
wholesale, and retail the commodity or service. As respects this service, 
producers, middle-men, and consumers are all interlinked. They con- 



THE MAKING OF A PEOPLE 



stitute a kind of social group stretching imaginary hands and eyes and 
voices over the wide gulfs of space or time that separate them. 

Thus we have thousands of producers of cotton cloth in Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island who are "socially" dependent on, and therefore related 
to, the producers of raw cotton in the South, hides in the West, and 
wheat in the Northwest, all of which are essential to the prosperity, and 
even the existence, of the workers of New England. 

There are probably millions of wage-earning operatives on railroads 
and in mines in America who have never seen their real employers — 
namely, the stockholders of the corporation. But the economic relation- 
ships thus created are none the less real and involve none the less of 
mutual responsibility, even though they are made obscure and difficult of 
adjustment by their impersonality. 

A highly complex society, or rather society of societies, has evolved in 
the United States. It is now probably the most complex society in the 
world. Aside from our insular possessions, there were in 1920 more than 
105,000,000 individuals of us. We are still rapidly increasing, though 
immigration has been restricted, the birth rate is falling, and the frontier 
with its free land has passed. We are the wealthiest and the most united 
of the large nations. We have no apprehensions of foreign invasion, 
whilst our social machinery for the protection of life, property, and 
reputation works fairly well, in spite of some manifest imperfections. 

A cross-section of the American people would show the same bewilder- 
ing intricacies that are found in the heavens on a clear night. Any adult 
among us can readily trace scores, if not hundreds, of social bonds, group- 
ings, and processes in which he is a part. Each of us can disentangle 
many sociological situations by answering these questions : What are 
your recognized family affiliations ? Your relationship to town, city, state, 
nation? Your membership in church, political, fraternal, recreational, and 
cultural organizations? Your dependencies upon employers, co-workers, 
and society at large for economic opportunities ? ^ 

The adult individual in any American village is visibly the beneficiary 
of numberless institutions and other human mechanisms, a large propor- 
tion of which, springing from seeds planted long ago, have become actively 
functional on this continent only within the last three centuries. Our 
villager, under all ordinary circumstances, now concerns himself but little 
with thoughts of how he can be protected against Indian raid, civil war- 
fare, or foreign invasion. The agencies now giving that security are 

^ Compare Kropotkin, P. A., Fields, Factories, and Workshops. 



8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

products of collective action complex, far-reaching, and to many citizens 
uncomprehended. Within thirty years almost all our colleges, and s&me 
of our high schools, have invited their students to study the social sciences 
— those bodies of knowledge dealing with the principles and methods 
of social organization. A generation has witnessed decided progress in 
diffusing some knowledge of social groups, social functions, and social 
improvement. 

The social environment is composed of men, women, and children, 
nearly all of whom are found living in groups. These groups are formed 
for various purposes — defense, cooperative - work, sociability, joint wor- 
ship, and the like. They vary in size from a partnership of two, or a 
family of four, to cities, nations, and alliances. Some are ephemeral, some 
last for many centuries. Some, like long established churches, political 
parties, or states, rest upon elaborate foundations of custom, codified 
statutes, and traditions of service ; others, like boys' gangs, dancing parties, 
and pleasure societies, have almost no tangible machinery.* 

The normal adult is a member of many social groups. Into some of 
these — the family, the state, the race — he was born and nurtured. With 
others he allies himself in more or less voluntary ways — churches, political 
parties, cultural and social groupings. Into still others he is admitted 
on approval and after specific preparation — marriage, higher schools,, 
secret societies, exclusive cultural and social sets, labor unions, and cor- 
porations. 

At first the members of these social groups usually follow rather than 
lead. Sometimes under direct coercion, more often in response to sug- 
gestion, they proceed to adapt themselves to the standards and ways of 
the groups, to court the approval of the older or stronger members, and 
to partake of the advantages that such membership makes possible. These 
processes of socialization can be traced in any family, village, school, 
fraternal society, church, political party, manual workers' union, or 
nation. 

On the other hand, sooner or later every individual reaches the point 
in any one of his group relationships where imposed restrictions irk him. 
The growing child rebels at too much parental control ; the citizen resents 
having to pay taxes, perform jury duty, or even obey certain unwelcome 
laws; the church member questions some doctrines or resists discipline; 
the unionist dislikes to obey orders of officials ; the member of the political 
party rejects the "platform" or "bolts" nominations of the leaders. 

* See _Ch. lo (The Causes of Race Superiority) in E. A. Ross, The Fotmdations 
of Sociology. 



THE MAKING OF A PEOPLE 



Hence every kind of social group is a theater of large or small con- 
tentions. Some members strive for obedience, unity, regularity ; others 
seek freedom, self-determination, individuahty. The material universe 
is said to represent a nice balancing of numberless centripetal and cen- 
trifugal forces ; a society or social group, except in stages of formation 
or dissolution, represents much the same nice balancing of "inward- 
tending" and "outward-tending" forces. Disruptive tendencies in 
family, nation, corporation, or club may result from the excessive "in- 
dividualism" of particular persons ; or it may result from the "clannish- 
ness" or "cliquishness" of smaller sub-groups having their own interests 
to serve.^ 

Within every social group some members are relatively pliant, sub- 
missive, and amenable to suggestion ; whilst others are unpliable, dominat- 
ing, and authoritative. Other things being equal, the young are of the 
first order, the old of the second. But still more complicating factors 
enter. Other things being equal, the more intelligent lead, the less intel- 
ligent follow; the physically strong often exert more influence than the 
physically weak; whilst differences in social disposition, firmness of will, 
or strength of individual desires play' a part. Under some social condi- 
tions men easily coerce women ; white men, colored ; those born to high 
rank, those of low station. Within certain groups men of some vocations 
readily dominate those of others, whilst the city-bred are surer of them- 
selves than are the country-reared. 

Necessity or desire brings small groups into cooperation, forming large 
and larger groups. By some standards all America constitutes a compact 
society — ^probably by far the most homogeneous "large group" now in 
the world. Earlier nations were forced together, often through the rough 
processes of conquest. Ours has grown large through widely diffused 
perception of the larger self-interests — the one outstanding exceptional 
event having been the war for the preservation of the Union. ^ 

It is agreed by all students of social science that recent centuries have 
witnessed rapid accelerations in social evolution. The "making of peoples" 
has proceeded, and is proceeding, at a rapid rate in other regions as well 
as central North America. But here conditions — geographic as well as 
social and historic — have been exceptionally propitious. Nowhere else 
can the drama of social evolution be studied on so broad a background and 
with its processes so clearly visible in the daylight. 

° See Ross, Principles (Ch. 4, The Original Social Forces). 

® For some very suggestive interpretations read F. J. Turner, The Frontier in 
American History, Ch. i, 8, and 11. 



lo EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



TOPICS AND PROBLEMS 

1. Restate some of the contentions, significant to sociologists, of Meredith 
Nicholson's Valley of Democracy. 

2. Trace some of the social effects of the frontier on the making of 
American history (Ref. F. J. Turner, The Frontier in American 
History). 

3. Report some of the outstanding social changes taking place in America 
due to recent immigration. (Ref. E. A. Ross, The Old World in the 
Nezv; same, What's America? Mary Antin, The Promised Land; 
and J. R. Commons, Races and Immigrants in America.) 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics (Ch. 6, Problems of Rural 
Social Life). 

Crqly, H. The Promise of American Life (Ch. 13, The Individual and 
the Natural Purpose). 

GiDDiNGS, F. The Principles of Sociology (Ch. i, Bk. II, The Social 
Population). 

Hart, A. B. Social and Economic Forces in American History (Ch. 26, 
Growth and Development). 

Huntington, E. The Red Man and His Continent (Ch. 3, The Geo- 
graphic Provinces of North America). 

Kelsey, Carl. The Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 3, The Control of 
Nature). 

McClure, Archibald. Leadership of the Nezv America (Ch. i and 2, 
General Introduction). 

Ross, E. a. The Old World in the Nezv (Ch. i. The Original Make-up 
of the American People). 

Semple, E. C. Influences of Geographic Environment (Ch. 4, Move- 
ments of Peoples in their Geographic Significance). 

Simons, A. N. Social Forces in American History (Ch. 6 and 8-11). 

Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 50, Social Achievement in the 
United States). 

Sparks, E. E. The Expansion of the American People (Ch. 31-2, Seek- 
ing Utopia in America). 

Wells, H. G. Social Forces in England and America (pp. 321-83, The 
American Population). 



CHAPTER II 
WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

YOU, the reader, are a member of many societies. Of your member- 
ship in some, such as your family, a fraternal organization, and your 
school, you are very conscious. You are less keenly aware of the character 
and scope of your membership in your nation, your vocational association, 
your political party. You have many social relationships that you could 
discover only by careful analysis. In greater or less degree, because of 
his social connections, every reader can answer in a measure questions like 
those given below — and no one can answer them completely because of 
insufficient scientific knowledge. 

1. What are some of the characteristic and important processes through 
which you cooperate with others : 

a,. In work ? 

h. In conserving and promoting health? 

c. In worship ? 

d. In defense against external foes? 

e. In exchange of your economic products (when you get to work) for the 
economic products of others? 

/. Toward insuring protection, among local groups, of life, liberty, and 
property, and in conserving order? 

g. In producing and diffusing sources of esthetic satisfaction? 
h. In the conservation of the progeny of others ? 

2. Set forth the essential characteristics of the following social groups or 
"societies" as you know them, as to numbers, age, and sex of members; the 
kinds of "usefulness" of each group to its members; the cooperative activities 
of the members, etc. : 

a. The typical American monogamous family. 

h. The "staff" of a ship (including officers and crew). 

c. A country village of five hundred inhabitants. 

d. The congregation of a typical Protestant church. 

e. An American "state." 

/. One of the smaller "nations." 

g. The owners, operators, and operatives of the Pennsylvania Railroad (or 
other large corporation). 



12 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

h. A trade union "local." 
i. A college fraternity, 
y. The "patriarchal" family of former times. 

3. What are some of the principal "values" to the people of a given area, or 
to humanity at large, of: the family; employer-employee groups (master and 
servant, employer and vi^age-earner, corporation and employees) ; congrega- 
tions for worship; fraternal societies; chartered municipalities; the nation;' 
"sociability" groupings? 

Under vi^hat circumstances may these groupings be "good" and when "evil" : 
the band; the labor union; the corporation; the cult; the festive "party"; 
political parties; the "secret society"? 

4. Set forth the "social relationships" — ties, bonds, cooperations, organi- 
zations, ceremonials, subordinations, commands, etc. — that human beings evolve 
in order to provide for : 

a. Defense against enemies from outside the tribe, state, or nation. 

b. Defense of life, property, and reputation within the local political area. 

c. The carrying on of political activities where suffrage prevails. 

d. Worship, conservation of religion, and increase of the "faithful." 

e. Exchange of economic products over wide areas. 
/. Maximum production of economic wealth. 

g. Increase and diffusion of knowledge. 

h. Increase and diffusion of beauty. 

i. Conservation, increase, and improvement of progeny, stock, or race. 

y. Conservation and enrichment of sociability or fellowship. 

5. What are the distinctive conditions and processes by which members are 
selected for, prepared for, accessioned to, and held to due conformity in, the 
following social groups: (o) the family; (b) a fraternity; (c) a nation; (d) 
a trade union; (e) a political party; (/) an evangelical church; (g) a "social 
set" or fellowship group; (h) a learned society? 

In what ways is the "successfulness" or efficiency of the foregoing groups 
assisted by: (a) the health of new individual members? (&) the socialized 
(more moral, more civic, more religious) "disposition" of new members; 
(c) their industriousness ; (d) their "native intelligence"; (e) their "acquired 
intelligence" — or education ? 

In what ways is education of the young expected to make for "better 
social life," "life more abundantly," social efficiency? 

6. The "values," "worth-while purposes, or "goods" for which men strive 
may be conveniently grouped under these heads: security (of life, property, 
reputation, etc.); wealth; health; righteousness; liberty; knowledge; beauty; 
human fellowship (companionship, sociability) ; fellowship with God (or 
other divine powers) ; and perpetuation of stock (race, progeny). 

Toward realizing which of these "goods" does a man's close membership 
in each of the following groups contribute : the nation ; a commercial cor- 



WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? -13 

poration; a fraternal society; a large city; a religious denomination; a lyceum 
or debating society; a life insurance society; a book club; a suburban women's 
club; a liberal arts college? 

In what respects does close and responsible membership in any one of 
these groups curtail or deprive the member of "values" — at least, as he feels 
them at the time? (Draw upon your own experience, for example, where 
membership in specific groups took more from you of wealth, liberty, health, 
fellowship, security, etc., than was given in return for these or other goods.) 

In what respects are "individuals" (serving their "individualism") and 
groups (serving their "collectivism") often in conflict? Separately consider: 
the state; the church; the family (for the father; the mother; the young 
child; the mature adolescent); the corporation; the trade union; the army; 
the school; the political party. 

SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL GROUPS ^ 

It is the nature of man to live, play, work, fight, worship, take his 
nurture and rest and to perform many other activities, in groups. Many 
of his group relationships are similar to those of other animals, perhaps 
derived from an ancient animal ancestry — including such as mating, co- 
operation for defense, mutual aid in work, and even joint government 
or control. 

Human social groups are usually more complex than those of animals 
(although in some ways man seems not to have reached the perfect organ- 
ization of ant and bee societies) ; and they differ greatly as respects the 
manner in which accumulated experience is transmitted from generation to 
generation. Animals cooperate almost wholly by virtue of instincts, the 
slow accretions, probably, of natural selection over unnumbered ages. Men 
are able to externalize their experience in printed matter, invented tools 
that can be copied, scientific knowledge that can be taught, and arts that 
can be imitated. 

In all early or primitive societies social relationships were commonly 
accompanied by face-to-face contacts and general acquaintanceship. It 
is said that some very early trading was carried on between hostile tribes 
thus : men from one group would leave some of their product in an exposed 
place, perhaps where religious rites had previously been carried on ; then 
in the night representatives from the other group would bring their salable 
articles to substitute for those left by the others. But it is certain that 
under elemental social conditions men usually become well acquainted 

* Every student should read some chapters from Prince Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, 
especially Ch. 7 and 8 (Mutual Aid Among Ourselves). 



14 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

with those from whom they buy, for whom they work, by whom they 
are governed, or with whom they recreate themselves. 

But many relationships become impersonal in modern life — thereby 
introducing cold and disagreeable elements, as well as making possible 
many relationships involving indifference and even cruelty. We are often 
served on railroads, in hotels, and in theatres by those with whom we have 
no personal acquaintanceship. We buy from peoples far removed from 
us, and the product of our hands may be consumed by folk of whom we 
have never heard. 

The study of societies seems to many persons abstract, difficult, and 
forbidding. They fail to appreciate how very obvious and easily under- 
stood are many of the structures, and at least some of the processes or 
functions, that sociology examines. Each one of us is very conscious of 
his membership in several social groups — one or two family groups, a 
church, a political party, a fraternity, a city, a nation, and others. He is 
well aware that he is cooperating with some persons, competing with others, 
and controlling, or being controlled by, still others. 

But these social groupings and their processes are the very stuff of the 
science of sociology. The human body, studied under the science of 
physiology, may be thought of in analogy with human societies — perhaps 
with society as a whole. The body has organs or parts about which even 
very primitive men had much accurate knowledge. Some of the functional 
processes of the body were also understood long ago. On the other hand, 
modern physiology continues to discover new and hidden organs, and is 
coming to know processes that were completely hidden from our an- 
cestors.^ 

Similar facts are true of the social body — or humanity, or society, or 
mankind, as some prefer to call it. Some of its structures have long been 
analyzed, and means for their betterment have been evolved. Long ago 
the wise men, at least, of family, tribe, church, and city defined the mean- 
ings of various social processes, and eventually controlled these toward 
preconceived needs. Very much remains still to be done, however. Many 
social structures are now well understood, and very likely there are many 
whose existence is hardly as yet suspected. This is even more true of 
social processes or functions which, like the circulation of the blood, the 
chemical processes of digestion, and the nervous processes of mental 
action, still remain to be explored. 

In a broad and very true sense, therefore, all of us are amateur sociol- 
ogists — just as modern education expects all of us to be something of 

^ Wells, Social Forces (pp. 224-42, The So-called Science of Sociology), 



WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? 15 

physiologists and hygienists. We are forced to be conscious of some of 
our social relationships — of our interdependencies, our rights due from 
others, and our obligations due to them. Even the prominence of poor 
self-interest forces us incessantly to study and to evaluate these various 
social relationships. All politics, much industry, and a large part of 
our association with others in worship, sociability, and the acquisition of 
experience consists of simple sociological explorations and estimates of the 
good or bad qualities in the human beings and social institutions found all 
around us. 

SOME GENERAL POSTULATES 

Group membership ^ is a necessity sooner or later for all human beings. 
Men, women, and children nearly always live, work, play, and fight in 
groups. Membership in these groups presents itself in a dual aspect to 
nearly every individual. He perceives that such membership is clearly 
advantageous and satisfactory to him in certain respects. From time to 
time, however, he feels it distinctly disadvantageous to him to submit to 
the discipline, or share in the responsibilities, of the group. The child in 
the family, the sailor in the crew, the soldier in the company, or the 
citizen in the political community would certainly not be happy for long, 
and probably could not live very long, if all support of others were 
withdrawn. Nevertheless there are many moments when each one of 
these individuals chafes under the restrictions and the obligations imposed 
by these social connections. 

But it is only through support and protection of groups that human 
beings can accomplish much. Men and women must share in labor. Chil- 
dren need the protection of the family group. Young workers are in 
need of the tools and other opportunities that can be furnished by em- 
ployers. Learners need teachers. Play is rarely satisfactory without 
companionship. The function of worship seems to necessitate coopera- 
tion and special facilities of time and place. Every function in specialized 
society — production, transportation, defense, acquisition of knowledge, 
promotion of the beautiful, the development of good stocks, and all others 
— are not only dependent on varied and complex cooperation with others 
now living, but in an even more fundamental sense are dependent on the 
contributions of uncounted millions of those who have gone before. We 
sometimes note a Robinson Crusoe or a genius working alone, and not 
infrequently a hermit living alone. These are, however, only very tem- 
* Tufts, Our Democracy (Ch. 3, First Cooperations). 



i6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

porarily exceptions to the rule. Neither the solitary worker nor the solitary 
dweller could endure his lot if it had not been for what his co-workers 
had done for and with him earlier. 

The social origins of man * are still largely shrouded in obscurity. It 
is probable that man as a species has lived in small social groups in his 
anthropoid, and primitive human, conditions for hundreds of thousands, 
if not for millions, of years before the stage was reached when pastoral, 
agricultural, and industri-al development made possible the large social 
groups of the modern world. During these long earlier centuries of 
evolution it would seem that two rather opposed tendencies were con- 
stantly at work. One of these tended incessantly toward strengthening 
the individualist jc qualities of the individual. The other set of tendencies 
was in the direction of socialising him. Modern man at his best is neither 
completely individualistic nor completely socialistic. In nature, as well 
as through the efifects of the social environment, he is a resultant, or rather 
he is a complex of resultants, of these conflicting tendencies. For many 
thousands of years there has doubtless been persistent elimination of, or 
denial by nature of progeny to, the excessively individualistic, as well as 
to the excessively socialistic — using this last term to include qualities of 
submissiveness, selflessness, undue dependence, want of self-reliance, and 
the like.^ 

Social groupings of the magnitude of modern cities, nations, corpora- 
tions, political parties, labor unions, armies, and the rest, are the products 
only of the sociological day before yesterday. For such groups the nature 
of man, as well as his more ancient customs and beliefs, are manifestly 
ill fitted. Into these larger groups it is especially difficult to fit the young, 
the more strongly individualistic, and the less intelligent. Everywhere the 
older, more experienced, and more far-sighted members strive to "tame" 
or domesticate these individuals, who on their part for the moment strongly 
wish to be left alone, or to submerge themselves in their "small" social 
groups. Hence appear on the one hand types of conduct characterized as 
revolt, strife, sin, and crime. Hence appear also conventions, customs, 
laws, police powers, education, and numberless other devices for fitting 
and holding individuals into social team work. 

The formation of large social groups wherein men are to live, work, 
fight, and even play not only imposes severe strains upon man's individu- 
alistic nature, but it creates unending difficulties for those qualities of his 

■* See Read, Carveth, The Origin of Man (Ch. 2, The Differentiation of the Human 
from the Anthropoid Mind). 
*Ross, Principles (Ch. 4, The Original Social Forces). 



WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? 17 



social nature that center in his small group relationships — that is, those 
demanded by his filial, fraternal, parental, gang, clique, clan, partnership, 
chum, convivial company, and neighborhood groups. The repression of 
native instincts toward strangers, submission to prolonged routine work, 
separation from home, postponement of economic satisfactions, and en- 
forced abnegation all conspire to make irksome the conditions imposed by 
large group efficiency. Every adult member of society to-day carries, as 
it were, a stock of grievances, some directed against the nation, state, army, 
employing corporation, or religious denomination that has tried to fit him 
into its requirements ; and some directed against associates or stranger's 
who, in his estimation, have shirked doing their share in the organizations 
to which he devotes himself. Social evolution toward large group member- 
ship for the last ten or fifteen thousand years has therefore brought in its 
train such institutions as conquest, slavery, constitutions, statutes, police 
powers, economic regimentation, private property, systematic education, 
nationalism, and religious systems. Social evolution in modern times 
destroys, or denies descendants to the members of, those special groups, 
from the family to the state, that cannot successfully compete with other 
groups in the matter of these "large group" cooperations, controls, and 
organizations for progress. Recorded history affords much evidence of 
the decay and final elimination of those forms of organization of the state, 
the army, and other "large groups," as well as of such mechanisms of 
societies as particular forms of education and joint production that have 
failed to match in efficiency other similar organizations with which they 
have been in competition or conflict. It is of course obvious that, within 
limits, those large groups that are capable of winning in the evolutionary 
race must work steadily toward improving not only their individual mem- 
bers but also their constituent "small groups." Modern social economy 
is therefore a legitimate and inevitable outgrowth of modern social evolu- 
tion. Men must be improved in health, morals, culture, combativeness, 
and industry if they are to sustain contemporary social structures. No less 
true is it that their families, their partnerships, their schools, their corpo- 
rations, their parties, and their small political communities must also be 
improved.^ 

SOCIOLOGY, THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN SOCIETIES 

Sociology can be defined as the science that treats of the social relations 
of human beings. These social relationships are of many kinds — including 
'Ross, Principles (Ch. 5, The Derivative Social Forces). 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



those between parent and child, leader and follower, buyer and seller, 
friend and friend, governor and governed, employer and employee, worker 
and co-worker. We also designate these relationships by such adjective 
words as : conjugal, filial, sociable, political, economic, cooperative, com- 
petitive, subordinate, convivial, and philanthropic. 

Many other sciences besides sociology deal with social relationship. 
History is chiefly a descriptive and narrative record of some or many 
of the particular and serial events that have happened by means of, and 
to, men in the past. The political sciences deal with man's cooperative 
efforts to maintain the state and its various kinds of government. The 
economic sciences deal with man's efforts to produce, to distribute, to 
exchange, and to consume material goods or wealth of all kinds. The 
words anthropology, ethnology, and criminology are adequately defined in 
any dictionary. 

Sociology as a general and inclusive science is comparable with biology, 
geology, and psychology. Under each of these are many sub-sciences or 
"linking" sciences — bacteriology, geo-physics, mental pathology. Economics 
is a sub-science to sociology, since it deals with only one kind of social 
phenomena or human relationships; but it is in a measure also a linking 
science, because of its large bearing on "material goods," or economic 
utilities. 

Perhaps the word interdependencies will serve a useful purpose in 
connection with attempts to define the field of sociology. Some one has 
written a Romance of a Breakfast-Table, designed to show that, in order 
to make possible our breakfast, thousands of men, women, and children 
in all quarters of the earth have thought and labored. The china, linen, 
pictures on the wall, chairs, silver, coffee, eggs, oats, salt, pepper, bread, 
and butter all have flowed in to us through the channels of trade. We, 
directly or indirectly, have paid all the producers of these goods, through 
the agency of money, in the kinds of service that v/e produced earlier or 
will produce later. 

"Man liveth not unto himself alone." The progress of social evolution 
has been steadily in the direction of increasing our interdependencies. 
Over wide areas we are now most conspicuously interdependent in economic 
ways. We are more interdependent in cultural and political ways, often, 
than we, especially of the more favored peoples, care to realize. Perhaps 
we are not so widely dependent upon one another in sociability and relig- 
ious matters. We know that, following all the lines of commerce, disease 
spreads in such ways as to make even international quarantine a necessity. 



WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? 19 

Sociology could, therefore, well be defined as the science of human inter- 
dependencies. 

Pure sociology, like any other so-called "pure" science, is designed to 
describe, to interpret, and to evaluate social phenomena without conscious 
reference to the practical results that may follow. Sociologists study, for 
example, the social groups formed by primitive human beings, and the 
interdependencies of men within those groups, and of the groups upon 
one another, without any expectation that the resulting knowledge will 
be of value to civilized societies. In a sense, they are seeking after 
"knowledge for its own sake." It is, of course, probable that all knowledge 
has, sooner or later, some practical value. Certainly much of what seemed 
once utterly "useless" scientific knowledge of electricity, chemistry, and 
even astronomy, has subsequently turned out to be of very great service 
to humanity. So the sociologist, even when engaged in what may seem 
to himself and others as quite impractical pursuits, has faith that sooner 
or later the world will find his discoveries useful in some way. Even if 
it could not, nevertheless the work is worth doing, since the Creator has 
endowed man (or is it only some men?) with a sort of undying curiosity 
that finds knowledge, like beauty, friendship, and communion with the 
divine, "good on its own account." 

Sociology as applied knowledge makes a different appeal. Disturb- 
ances in our group relationships, like disturbances in the body, so distress 
us that we make all kinds of demands for relief. The wise social scientist, 
like the wise physician, sees that relief is not to be accomplished by the 
methods of magic or incantation; nor are violent nostrums or "patented" 
panaceas of much value. Crime, bad government, widespread poverty, 
prevalent vice, war, oppression, general loneliness, insecurity, ignorance, 
deterioration of stock or race, monopoly, intolerance, obstructed distribu- 
tion of economic goods, and numberless other disorders are the "diseases 
of the body politic." They call for remedy, but provision of remedy calls 
for knowledge — knowledge of the values and conditions of sound group 
life, of properly harmonized human relationships, of rightly adjusted and 
satisfied interdependencies. 

Much of the progress of sociology to date has been achieved by men 
in quest of very practical results. The very obvious and distressing facts 
of tyrranical or corrupt governments, of poverty, of intellectual stagna- 
tion, of crime, and of debasing superstition, have long turned men to 
the direct study of the means and methods of "collective" action — by state, 
parties, philanthropic cooperation, or technical leadership — through which 



20 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

these evils could be corrected. Naturally, many of these men did not 
call themselves sociologists, any more than have the numerous travelers, 
missionaries, and colonial governors who have added so greatly to the 
world's stock of knowledge of primitive and remote peoples. We must 
remember that large portions of the world's knowledge of geology were 
contributed by miners, explorers, and others who were anything but 
geologists. For thousands of years chemical knowledge was being accumu- 
lated by very practical workers who were far from being chemists. Breed- 
ers, butchers, foresters, and even savages discovered and transmitted much 
of valuable materials for the science of biology long before this term was 
invented. 

Similarly, political reformers, "social uplifters" as we once would have 
called them, and kindly students of the dregs of humanity, have contributed 
much to modern sociology. In their special departments modern 
economists, political scientists, anthropologists, criminologists, and ethnol- 
ogists are perhaps far ahead of the general sociologist. But his is neces- 
sarily the more comprehensive view. He studies all the social relation- 
ships in all the kinds of social groups that men form. He studies not 
only man's dependence upon the soil for wheat, upon waterfalls for 
power, and upon his fellows for cooperation, but also his dependence upon 
an idea of God for inspiration, upon beauty for the flavoring of life, and 
upon sociable fellowship for the fertilization of the soil of happiness. 

Ptire sociology is concerned primarily with the nature of social groups 
and social processes, just as pure chemistry seeks to understand the nature 
of chemical compounds and chemical processes. Applied sociology can 
well be thought of as concerned with the control and utilisation of group 
life and social processes toward the improvement of human conditions 
in exactly the same way that we think of the uses of applied chemistry. 

Social improvement can be thought of as taking place in either one of 
two ways : (a) by natural evolution through blind experimentation, trial- 
and-success, survival of that which is apparently most successful; or (b) 
by purposive evolution or modification through the aid of fairly clear 
knowledge of ends to be realized and the best means of attaining them.'^ 
Improvements in social groups and processes have, of course, always 
taken place, and are capable of being consciously furthered, no less than 
is man's control of his material environment. This can be illustrated 
from any one of scores of social examples. 

The monogamous family, for example, is a well defined type of social 
group of very ancient origin among men. Successful types are, indeed, also 

' Compare L. F. Ward's concept of telic or purposive social action. 



WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY? 21 

found among the higher birds and animals. Its primary function, 
obviously, is the nurture, conservation, and education of the young. Many 
thousands of years of natural evolution were doubtless required to bring 
the family up to the forms, fixed in custom, that we find among primitive 
peoples. Thousands pf years of subsequent evolution, partly purposive, 
partly natural, were required to give us the family of to-day, around which 
cluster not only a great variety of old customs, beliefs, and sentiments, 
but also hosts of laws and religious decrees, as well as much scientific 
knowledge of fairly exact character. 

The more civilized peoples, therefore, value very highly the monogamous 
family. In numberless ways they seek to prevent its impairment from 
without or degeneration from within, since, of course, its proper upkeep 
entails, as do all other socially valuable institutions, a heavy burden, both 
upon individuals who are not, like the children helped by family organiza- 
tion, its immediate beneficiaries, and also upon certain social groups such 
as churches and states. To these ends regulating laws have been made, 
penalties for infractions administered, and conditions for best functioning 
created. The state licenses those who would marry ; and it defines and 
safeguards the rights of women and children in that minority of cases 
where custom and the sentiments of parents prove inadequate. 

Sociological science steadily expands its knowledge of the family. It 
differentiates and evaluates the various specific conditions of family hcalth- 
fulness — instinctive, temperamental, racial, religious, residential, economic, 
division of labor, internal control, and the like — no less purposefully than 
does medicine differentiate and evaluate the conditions of bodily health- 
fulness. 

Social economy now proceeds along scores of lines to curb or cure 
pathological manifestations in family life. Working in somewhat greater 
obscurity as yet, it also seeks the development of preventive and conserva- 
tive means — to forestall and arrest pathological tendencies. In these 
efforts, of course, counter-tendencies must constantly be opposed. Indi- 
vidual desires for licentiousness tend always to undermine the family. 
Prevalence of vocational or social ambitions tends unduly to delay mar- 
riage or restrict progeny. The independence of women tends to break 
down the masculine control that helped hold together the historic family. 
The mobility of labor promotes family desertion and neglect of old 
parents by adult sons and daughters. 

Against tendencies adverse to the proper functioning of the family 
group the intelligent and social-minded fight unceasingly. Those condi- 
tions to which substantial majorities assent are crystallized into laws. 



22 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Certain invisible pathological conditions of home, church, school, press, 
and perhaps stage, must sometimes be combated. At times discourage- 
ment overtakes faithful workers. The constant increase of divorce ; post- 
war laxities ; the concerted disparagement of stable marriage so volumi- 
nously, persistently, and even nauseatingly voiced by the half-baked in- 
dividualists who supply a large proportion of the fiction, drama, and other 
art of the day — these threaten sometimes to bafifle the efforts of those who 
can see little social health that does not derive somehow from wholesome 
family life. 

The objectives of social economy — in which applications of sociological 
science must play an increasing part — are now hardly fewer than are 
the differentiated useful objectives of medicine, education, or agriculture. 
Political, economic, and eugenic betterment — under these three heads alone 
can be enumerated scores of the most stupendous of the tasks to which the 
rising generation is already addressing itself. 

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS 

1. The early social life of man (Ref. J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy, Ch. 

1-7). 

2. Mutual aid (Ref. Prince Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, A Factor in Evolu- 
tion) . 

3. Trace the processes by which a political party has become a fixed and 
relatively stable social organization. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. i, The Tentative Method). 
Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problem (Ch. i, The 

Study of Society). 
GiDDiNGS, F. Principles (Ch. 2, The Province of Sociology). 
Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. i and 2, Subject Matter and 

Definitions of Sociology). 
Spencer, H. The Study of Society (Ch. i. Our Need of It; Ch. 2, Is 

There a Social Science?). 
Wallas, G. The Great Society (Ch. 2, Social Psychology). 
Ward, L. F. Outlines of Sociology (Ch. i, The Place of Sociology; Ch. 

9, The Purpose of Society), 



CHAPTER III 
WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY?'^ 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

IT has previously been intimated that you, the reader, are something of 
a sociologist, in spite of your own doubts. But you are also something 
of an educator — all educated Americans in this democracy are that. At 
least, you have been greatly affected by schools, and you know that your 
home and your neighborhood community did much to educate you. 
Furthermore, you have a whole sheaf of opinions about education — the 
education you had or did not have, and that which you know to be 
provided for others. You think that the time you spent on Latin was 
time well — or ill — spent ; that for some of your friends a college educa- 
tion is a superfluous thing; that high-school education is getting "too 
practical" ; that we do not give enough time to moral training ; and so on 
indefinitely. 

You are apt to think of the purposes and consequences of education 
in terms of individual well-being. But that is chiefly because you think 
of social tvell-heing as established by the sum-total of individual well- 
beings — which is in large part true. But in time of war, or when you 
reflect on the political, moral, cultural, health or even economic needs of 
the commonwealth, you easily come to see education in its larger social 
significance. 

All educators, but of course, conspicuously those who plan education, 
have always been forced to think of their purposes in terms of social 
well-being. Even when schools were for aristocrats only, they thought in 
terms of noblesse oblige — the leaders idealized leadership for the sake of 
the common folk who must follow. 

You, too, have, half-consciously, always linked up educational aims and 
methods with your social knowledge. You can do it even more pur- 
posively. These questions are submitted to pave the way : 

1. Why have statesmen and other leaders decided recently (in history) that 
the state should teach all to read? What are grounds for the beliefs that 
"illiteracy" is harmful? Harmful to whom — the illiterates themselves, the 
literates, or to society at large? 

2. How are the following supposed to contribute to the general welfare, 

^ Compare : W. E. Chancellor, Educational Sociology; F. R. Clow, Principles of 
Sociology with Educatioiml Applications ; C. L. Robbiiis, The School as a Social 
Institution ; and W. R. Smith, An Introdtiction to Educational Sociology. 

23 



24 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

or to "social improvement" : free, publicly supported high schools ? State 
universities? Publicly supported trade schools? 

Does any well informed person believe that the "social good" would be 
enhanced through requiring all pupils in public schools to study Latin? By 
refusing to provide any opportunities for such study? What do you regard 
as, for the present, a sane middle ground? 

3. What tentative answers can you now derive from your sociological 
knowledge to such questions as these : 

a. Should the Japanese language be offered as a study in our larger high 
schools ? 

b. Should military training be required of boys in all high schools? 

c. Should training in violin-playing be provided as an elective at public 
expense in junior and senior high schools, assuming that the cost of such 
training would be at least fifteen dollars per year per pupil? 

d. Is it very important that "physical training" be provided in rural schools 
for boys from twelve to sixteen years of age? All boys? The physically 
deficient only? 

e. Is it important to society that boys from twelve to sixteen years of 
age who have become semi-criminal should be committed to boarding "reform" 
schools? 

/. Is it desirable that schools devoted exclusively to single specific trades 
should be provided for pupils over fifteen years of age, and that in them 
90 per cent, of an eight-hour school day should be given to training in trade 
practice and theory? 

g. Is it socially desirable that "free meals" be provided for under-nourished 
pupils in public schools? 

4. The following are problems of much importance to makers of curricula 
to-day. Suggest means of applying to their solution such sociological knowl- 
edge as we now possess : 

a. What seem to be the "educational values" (to individuals or to their 
social groups) of the kindergarten? Is it chiefly valuable for children from 
poor social surroundings? Good social surroundings? Children of low men- 
tality? Of high mentality? Girls rather than boys? 

b. What are the values (to individuals or to society) of the studies of plane 
geometry and algebra now nearly universally required in our high schools and 
for college entrance? 

c. What are the probable "social values" that justify the large expenditures 
now made for the teaching of Spanish in high schools? 

d. Is it socially desirable, important, or expedient that practical civics shall 
be so taught in higher public schools as to bring pupils into controversial 
attitudes toward current economic, political, and racial issues ? 

e. What are the demonstrated social needs that make it seem urgent to some 
that our schools should give much greater attention to physical education ? 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 25 

5. The foregoing problems derive largely from the field of the aims of edu- 
cation. But sociology, and especially the psychological phases of sociology, 
may be drawn upon for help in some problems of method — methods of con- 
trol and methods of teaching. These problems are of interest: 

a. For what light can the psychology of "social control" — in such phases as 
leadership, mass sentiment and action of the like-minded, mob feeling, "small 
group" loyalties, counter-suggestion — be drawn upon in devising or executing 
plans of constructive school discipline ? 

b. What are the limits to, and characteristics of, the "self-government" that 
can be maintained among any given grade of pupils? 

c. Under what conditions can "instincts of competition" be effectively util- 
ized in educational processes? 

d. Under what conditions can "instincts of cooperation" be effectively util- 
ized in educational processes? 

6. Sociological studies prove that in certain sections of the population much 
reliance is still placed on "patent medicines." What bearing should this fact 
have on school curricula? 

Similar studies show that a large proportion of women bring to bear, in 
maintaining their homes and rearing their children, very little of modern scien- 
tific knowledge in these fields. What conclusions follow as to the need, scope, 
and place of new forms of instruction and training? 

Owing to decline of apprenticeship, to the ease with which juveniles can 
procure remunerative but non-educative jobs, and to other causes, it is found 
that a large proportion of men at thirty have no extensive or "trained" 
vocational competency. What remedies are suggested? 

7. What are the "social groups" that we consider most vital to civilized 
society? Compare: conjugal family with patriarchal family; monogamous 
family with polygamous family ; democratic state with oligarchic state ; tribe 
with province; clan with party; city of freemen with feudal city. By what 
means are progressive men seeking to conserve and enhance the "right kinds" 
of social groups? 

8. What are currently believed to be in America some serious social de- 
fects in : family life ; city community life ; village community life ; rural com- 
munity life ; highly organized business ; processes of exchange of commodities ; 
modern church organizations; political parties; international relationships? 

How is it proposed to remedy some of the foregoing defects by: 

a. legislation and police powers; 

b. creation of new mechanisms and processes; 

c. education, preparatory (in schools), and extension (parallel in adult life) ; 

d. other means ? 

9. What could a social scientist tell us as to the correctness and adequacy 
of our diagnosis of the above defects? 

As to the probable efficacy of the proposed remedial means? 



26 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

10. What have recent advances in psychology added to previous knowledge 
or belief as to the variability of inherent mental powers ? Is it to be assumed 
that the extent, thoroughness, and complexity of possible learning will vary 
similarly? What kinds of learning? 

What probable effects will recent developments in tested knowledge of 
hygiene here have on educational programs? 

Assume that further inquiry should prove that only one fourth as many 
negroes as whites reach a certain high (A) grade of intelligence, and that 
twice as many fall into a certain low (D) grade. Should that knowledge alone 
cause curriculum offerings to be substantially varied in schools for whites 
and for blacks? In the primary grades ? How? Upper (4-6) grades? How? 
Junior high school? Senior high school? How, and for whom in each case? 

Do such differentiations of mental power seem to correlate closely with 
occupational differentiations? Even though "lower-grade" whites are fewer 
(proportionately) than lower-grade negroes, should the two races receive dif- 
ferent educations on that account? Even though negroes of high-grade mental 
powers are fewer than whites, should these few receive a different education ? 
Why? 

11. What do you assume to be the shortages or defects of health and other 
kinds of physical well-being to-day prevalent among men and women from 
thirty to sixty years of age that (a) can, (b) should, and (c) probably will, 
be corrected to an important degree in the generation who are to-day children 
from six to eighteen years of age? Separately consider: tuberculosis, hook- 
worm, cancer, malaria, industrial accidents, under-nourishment, teeth defects, 
digestive disturbances, deaths in parturition, drownings? 

12. During the Great War, 2,753,000 American men between eighteen and 
thirty years of age were physically examined. Of these "over half were found 
to be without any physical or mental blemish significant enough to record." 
Nearly 48 per cent, were found defective — although often not defective 
enough to cause rejection from military service. The most common defect 
was weak feet — 124 per thousand; hernia was found in 40 per thousand; 
heart defects in 50; defective vision in 30; "defective physical development" 
in 30; venereal disease in 25; tuberculosis in 24; mental defects in 25; dis- 
eases and defects in teeth in 10, or about i per cent. ; and other defects in 
lessening ratios. 

Which of these defects would probably have serious consequences on (a) 
civilian work; (&) normal pleasures of life; and (c) family life? 

Which could probably have been prevented by more complete instruction in 
hygiene in schools ? By proper medical inspection in schools ? By some form 
of "physical training"? 

Suggest means by which further studies of the health and strength of our 
peoples might be prosecuted so as to give to education more definitive and 
functional objectives of physical education than it now possesses. 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 27 

13. What seem to you to be the most conspicuous shortages, as well as posi- 
tive virtues, in (a) obedience to laws, and (b) taking active part in decent 
politics, of large proportions of : older "farm-owning" farmers in the north- 
ern Mississippi Valley ; recent jmmigrant Russian Jews, men from twenty-five 
to forty years of age ; young women country school-teachers ; single negro 
males, general workers,, in northern cities; college graduates in business; high- 
school boys in a suburb ? In each case suggest some specific studies or other 
activities for some grade in schools that might correct some of the defects 
noted. 

Trace to some sources specific enough to indicate possible corrective prac- 
tices in education, these alleged civic defects in our democracy : low estimate 
of "public office" by competent men; the "professionalizing" of careers in legis- 
lature and congress ; public indifference to primary elections ; lack of prepared- 
ness for war; vote-selling by certain classes of voters. 

Suggest means and methods whereby the study of sociology can aid us in 
defining specific objectives of civic and moral education. 

14. What are some of the most conspicuous "cultural shortages" of the 
American people? Of American women of wealth and social position? Of 
American negroes? Of working-girls in factories? 

Is the general magazine-reading of Americans of a high or low order, as 
you see it? If given a mandate to raise the qualities of this reading in the 
next generation through schools under your control, how would you proceed? 

Define what seem to you some specific and serious shortages or defects in 
American life, as respects appreciation of: poetry; spoken drama; sculpture; 
municipal architecture ; photo-drama ; art qualities in furniture ; art factors 
in personal decoration. What are some of the educational means — in schools, 
and outside of schools — now employed to raise, or at least to prevent further 
lowering of, artistic standards? Given money and authority, suggest means 
you would employ in schools to raise standards. How would you avoid 
snobbishness? Pharisaism? Philistinism? 

Do you think Americans should learn a foreign language ? All Americans ? 
All languages ? Learn how much — in expected powers or appreciations at 
age thirty? For cultural or for other purposes? Is it well for us that we 
have hardly a hundred educated Americans who can read or speak Japanese 
readily? Is it important that we should have a hundred thousand who could 
do so? What are some of the social needs of Americans which indicate that 
we should always seek to provide through schools and colleges for moderate 
representation of skilful and enthusiastic masters of: ancient Greek; modern 
Arabic; Portuguese; German; literary Chinese; Japanese? 

15. What are some possible contributions of sociology toward defining ob- 
jectives of cultural education? 

16. Do men and women who are educated for the callings named below 
seem to you to be so incompetent as to hurt their own and society's interests 



28 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

to-day — that is, in medicine, elementary school teaching, stenography, phar- 
macy, dentistry, mining engineering? Why do we have so many vocational 
schools for these callings, and not for the callings of farmer, bootblack, 
fireman, sailor, and waitress? 

"All adult persons have had a vocational education." Show the truth of 
this, the term "education" being used in its most comprehensive sense. Dis- 
tinguish these three forms of vocational education: (o) school; (6) appren- 
ticeship; and (c) "pick-up." What are some strong points of each? Some 
weak points ? 

How would you proceed to discover whether there exists a marked "social 
need" of vocational schools for : high-school teachers ; plumbers ; poultry-grow- 
ers ; shoe salesmen ; sailors ; coal-miners ? 

Suggest means and methods whereby educational sociology can point the 
way to improvements in the scope and character of offerings in vocational 
education. 



THE NEED FOR EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Why educate people? Toward what forms of proficiency — in habits, 
skills, appreciations, understanding, attitudes, ideals — shall we educate? 
Whom shall we educate? To what extent shall we educate? These are 
very ancient questions. They were doubtless asked scores of thousands 
of years ago when experience proved that cooperative and systematic train- 
ing of some or all of the young was essential to the making of good 
soldiers, craftsmen, priests, rowers, and artists. Still more insistently 
were they asked when, strong peoples having overcome the less militant 
dwellers in the great valleys, it became necessary for the conquerors to 
train their own sons to govern and to defend their conquests, and to train 
the sons of the conquered to till the soil, shape weapons, build walls, carve 
stones, and tend herds. 

When writing emerged from the confines of priestly mysteries, and 
especially when the invention of printing democratized large portions of 
the social inheritance of literary, historical, and scientific knowledge, these 
questions took on new significance. In our day of aspirations for political 
and perhaps other kinds of democracy on the one hand, and on the other 
hand for closely knit powerful nationalities, they become very involved and 
far-reaching indeed. 

Problems of whom to educate and to what specific purposes to educate 
have, therefore, for thousands of years linked up intimately with political, 

^Useful interpretations are found in A. J. Todd, Theories of Social Progress 
(Ch. 22) Some Educational Implications of Social Progress). 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 29 

religious, moral, economic, and cultural thinking. Their discussion plays 
a very large role in the philosophical writing of thinkers immediately pre- 
ceding or following Plato. Herbert Spencer paused midway in the elab- 
oration of his Synthetic Philosophy to debate the question "What 
knowledge is of most worth?" Even to-day there are few "self-made" 
laymen in business or the professions who do not consider themselves 
competent to defend far-reaching generalizations as to changes needed in 
contemporary education. 

The direction and support of various forms of education were formerly 
matters largely for family, church, and guild, the state entering only where 
necessary to its special functions, as in the conduct of military defense. 
But now many forms of education are, in progressive countries, almost 
completely controlled, and very largely supported, by the state — pri- 
marily in the interests of political unity and strength. 

Education is a social function of the state, the community, the com- 
monwealth, or collective society. That is the generally accepted doctrine 
of our time, and no sociologist disputes its validity.^ For many years 
from 30 to 40 per cent, of all public revenues raised by state and local 
taxation in the United States have been allocated to the support of public 
schools — ranging in grade from kindergartens to state universities. It 
is often said that Americans collectively have more faith in the value of 
education than in any other creed — religious, political, or economic. 

But our educational riches and our educational faith have somewhat 
blinded us, not only to the specific purposes of various kinds of educa- 
tion, but also to the adaptations of these to various levels or classes of 
human beings. In the early stages of any great emotional movement — 
political, religious, cultural — men are prone to expect magical results 
from it. Christianity, physical science, liberty, democracy, power-driven 
machinery, peace — men of idealistic vision have tended always to expect 
too much of these. So they have tended to demand too much from educa- 
tion — private or public, toward literacy or toward vocational proficiency. 

The twentieth century witnessed in America a ceaseless and prodigious 
expansion of the social science studies.. Our hundreds of colleges and 
universities have during the last quarter century multiplied their offerings 
of political science, economics, social economy, and sociology. They are 
laying foundations for more sociological interpretations of the historical 
sciences than have heretofore prevailed. The sources, as well as the 
remedies and preventives, of social disabilities and diseases — poverty, in- 

'But Herbert Spencer's antipathies to state socialism led him to condemn the 
nationalizing of education. See his Social Statics. 



30 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

temperance, vice, crime, worklessness, ignorance, exploitation — are now 
being studied as never before. 

Out of these studies has emerged searching criticism of historic educa- 
tional policies — not so much of their general intent as of their specific 
aims, adaptations, and methods. Education — even public education — had 
been, it is discovered, excessively aristocratic in a kind of primitive fashion. 
Its tacit motto, above the lower grades, seems to have been, "To him that 
hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not shall be taken away even 
that which he hath." 

The closing decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twen- 
tieth witnessed also the general development in stronger colleges and 
universities of departments devoted to the study of education. In these 
centered many controversies as to elective studies in schools and colleges, 
and as to the essential nature of educable childhood. From them em- 
anated also varied and severe criticisms of historic educational purposes 
and practice. 

Meantime the world has been most fecund of possible new objectives 
for all levels of education. The natural sciences, proliferating and extend- 
ing, have presented new riches of subject matter suited even to the lowest 
grades. The social sciences, history, and literature have been no less fruit- 
ful. Efficient education may no longer ignore the practical arts and 
physical sports as means of development, or fine arts appreciation as 
means of culture. Schools of general education can, manifestly, help in 
the economic adjustments necessary in a complex society, through train- 
ing in thrift, hygiene, and vocational guidance. The wisdom of social 
economy demands that the rank and file, as well as the heretofore favored 
vocational aristocrats, shall have opportunity to prepare themselves for 
wage-earning work by at least a few months' specific vocational training. 

Sociology, then, always hitherto used in naive and crude fashion as a 
means of determining educational objectives, is now being looked to as 
the primary source of light in the scientific development of that field of 
knowledge and practice. - 

Social well-being is promoted, so far as we now know, by collective 
provision of more and better security, health, economic goods, social 
righteousness, knowledge, beauty, religion, fellowship, and progeny. Edu- 
cation — chiefly of young people, but to an increasing extent also of adults 
and of "community groups" — is a gigantic augmenter of these values. 

But an effective system of education must know what the various social 
values are : what kinds and degrees of each it is desirable and practicable to 
promote for the utmost "well-being" of societies and individuals ; and 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 31 

what are the most economical and efficient means and methods of securing 
these ends. 

THE MEANING OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Sociology, as has been shown, is the science of social groups, social 
processes, and social values — in a word, of social relationships or social 
interdependencies. Men are constantly at work seeking to improve 
societies and social conditions — promoting health, lessening crime, increas- 
ing knowledge, advancing numberless forms of cooperation. 

Education — in the inclusive sense of the control, the development, and 
the organization and direction of training and instruction — is one of 
the gigantic social processes, designed partly to prevent each generation 
from losing any of the ground gained by previous generations, and partly 
to assist it to reach higher levels than had any previous generation. 

Later it will be shown that education can profitably be considered as of 
several species — natural education, taking place through sheer free play 
of the imitative and other learning instincts of children in their environ- 
ment, artificially controlled or directed grozvth or development, and syste- 
matic training and instruction. 

In so far as a man or any social group of men purposively control edu- 
cation in any of its varieties, they obviously do so for the purpose of 
making certain preconceived changes in the plastic child or adult subjected 
to educative processes. These purposes are very frequently expressed in 
terms of changes desired in the individual — he is to be taught to read, 
to play football, to serve as a soldier, to translate Latin, or to worship in 
a particular way. But, generally, these purposes look far beyond the 
individual — in fact, they are common for many individuals, and when 
realized they will affect for good or ill many individuals. They are, in 
fact, social purposes. 

How are the purposes — the aims, objectives, or goals — of any par- 
ticular form of education derived? Clearly, from a study, by influential 
persons, of the needs of some social group. The father of a family 
educates his son to be a good fdial member of the family, to succeed in 
business enterprise, and to win approval in the world of men. In a 
word, the father studies sociologically the conditions and needs of the 
various social groups in which his son is expected to play a role. To 
a great extent, of course, he simply follows crystallized custom ; but he 
does so because he approves it. 

Every social group into which the young must adjust themselves — play- 



32 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ground gang, workshop company, church social set, political party, village 
community — is to a degree an educative group. Many of its methods are 
well-nigh unconscious — or rather they have become so much a matter 
of custom that only keen students are able to objectify and concretely 
study as phases of education such methods in action. 

But among all civilized peoples these relatively unorganized forms of 
education are being steadily supplemented — in many cases replaced — by 
more purposive and specialized forms of instruction and training and, in 
recent years, controlled development. The governing and other aristocratic 
classes have at all times quite consciously educated their children to carry 
on the aristocratic vocations, manners, and ideals. They consciously 
differentiate the aristocratic tradition from other social traditions, thus 
making their education- socially purposive. 

Social purposiveness also characterizes the education of all guilds — 
priestly, military, commercial, and crafts. Amongst all peoples emerging 
from the low stages of barbarism, alliances of workers in similar fields 
for mutual protection seem eventually to produce vocationally conscious 
groups, here generally called guilds. These evolve various forms of 
government and protection, including the recruiting and education of new 
members. Such education, too, is class-conscious and socially purposive 
in high degree. 

Nationality produces new levels and kinds of education. Here we 
have a large number of people — a political community — thinking first of 
all in terms of defense of territory, possessions, and dependencies ; and 
from these passing on naturally to thoughts of internal order, group 
enrichment, and group aggrandizement. The nation, too, uses education 
as a means to these ends — first education of needed leaders, then educa- 
tion of all. Again we find socially purposive education — now on the 
vast scales characteristic of modern America, France, Japan, Germany, 
China. 

Thus have men from very early times shaped education with reference 
to felt social needs. Of course, when a man is good for a society, that 
society is nearly always reciprocally good for him. Hence, with occa- 
sional exceptions, the immediate and possibly vividly conscious purpose 
of parent, captain, priest, master workman, or patriotic educator has been 
to make the most of the youth — to enable him to succeed to the fullest. 
But, none the less, the larger social purposes, as then understood, have 
usually been served thereby. 

Simplicity of educational purpose, therefore, characterized most of the 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 33 

older historic forms of education. Spokesmen for the social groups con- 
cerned did not, usually, bother themselves with consideration of multi- 
farious aims. They uttered dogmas, assumed certain uniformities on the 
part of learners, and dealt much in educational prescriptions. What was 
good for one was good for all — of that social class. Prussian, Japanese, 
and French education still betray this historic attitude. A social philosophy 
determines, indeed, the purposes of their education; but it is a social 
philosophy that deals chiefly in large and massive generalizations, little 
heeding the varied powers and capacities of learners, the numerous social 
"values" that, for different kinds of learners, can best be realized through 
education, and the local conditions that call for special adaptations of aim 
or method. 

Complexity of educational purposes grows apace in modern democra- 
cies, especially when scientific psychology reveals the wide ranges of 
abilities, original or acquired, among those to be educated. The specula- 
tive thinker still asks, "What is the aim of education ?" — that is, the par- 
amount or all-inclusive aim. Practical sociology as yet disclaims ability to 
answer that question; but practical sociology can formulate scores, if not 
hundreds, of concrete objectives, derived largely as goals or "optimum 
resultants" from consideration of three factors — the educabilities of 
specified types of learners, the personal needs of these learners, and the 
needs of their societies — from families to nations. 

THE PROVINCE OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Educational sociology has as its chief province the scientific determina- 
tion of educational objectives. It constitutes an applied or linking science 
between the fields of sociology (as a pure science) and social economy 
(as the science of all phases of human well-being) on the one hand, and 
the practice of education on the other. 

As a linking science it is comparable with such other so-called applied 
sciences as : educational psychology ; agricultural chemistry ; electrical 
physics ; navigational astronomy ; medical sociology ; medical bacteriology ; 
aeronautic mechanics ; political history ; educational history ; household 
(graphic and plastic) art; life-insurance (actuarial) mathematics; educa- 
tional architecture ; educational hygiene ; educational physiology or biology ; 
political economics; and many others. 

In all these cases we find on the one hand a relatively large field of 
general knowldege — a science or a fine art with well defined principles ; 



34 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

and on the other a well defined field of practical work. The latter may 
employ contributions from many sciences — as does, for example, agricul- 
ture, which now draws heavily upon physics (e.g., soil physics), chemistry 
(e.g., chemistry of fertilizers), bacteriology (e.g., plant or animal path- 
ology), botany (e.g., plant breeding), and economics (e.g., marketing). 

But any particular field of practice usually draws from only very 
limited areas of the general or pure sciences or art. Navigation makes 
much use of some very specific forms of mathematics and of astronomy; 
but with wide ranges of knowledge in each of these fields navigators have 
no concern whatever. Such an industry as beet-sugar manufacture, for 
example, very greatly needs specific applications of chemistry; but these 
are in no respect the same as the applications of that science needed in 
steel manufacture, copper-refining, or tanning. 

Education as a field of applied science, when fully developed, will, 
obviously, draw upon many sciences. (Education has heretofore evolved, 
like early medicine, metal-working, agriculture, and war, largely as an 
art, and with few conscious and purposive borrowings from other fields 
of knowledge.) Psychology must be drawn on especially for two kinds of 
help: (a) what is the educability — general, for many lines, or particular 
(for example, in music or stenography or altruistic ideals) — of a given 
learner or of given types of learners; and (b) what are the best methods 
of fostering or directing learning processes — for example, of handwriting 
or a foreign language or art appreciation? 

The history of education may be drawn upon for various purposes. 
At any time educators in an area of highly advanced educational practice 
can study that history for the purpose of widening their appreciations, or 
extending their vocational perspective — even though such studies could 
not be expected to culminate in immediately practical results. Educators 
in an educationally backward area could and would obviously study the 
history, past and present, of the education of more progressive areas for 
very practical guidance. We can conceive similar studies being prosecuted 
by peoples that have or shall have sufifered periods of degeneration or 
retrogression. 

Educational sociology must aid in accounting for the large differences 
among social groups due to heredity, environment, and opportunities. 
From these differences flow differences of educational programs. 

In part the work of public schools should smooth out or remove dif- 
ferences among groups composing homogeneous society; in part it should 
accentuate certain differences due to abilities or opportunities. 



WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 35 



SOCIOLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS OF SOCIAL DEFECTS 

Shortages or defects in present adult social life are to be prevented in 
the next generation partly by educative processes now directed toward 
the children — the rising generation. What, scientifically, are these short- 
ages or defects? How numerous are they? Only social studies, using 
the contributions of various other sciences, can show. 

Health shortages, while perhaps not more extensive, or even so exten- 
sive, among Americans as among other peoples (and we seem to be con- 
spicuously better off than the Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, and other 
large peoples), are, according to the testimony of medical authorities, still 
distressingly abundant. Modern medicine has some great achievements to 
its credit — it has exiled typhus and cholera, and no longer permits incur- 
sions of yellow fever. Improved housing and sanitation seem to have 
steadily reduced tuberculosis and typhoid, whilst smallpox has yielded 
largely to preventive vaccination. 

Widespread instruction in hygiene in the schools seems to have con- 
tributed much toward temperance and a more cautious attitude toward 
infections. 

But purposive control of health conditions, and prevention of disease 
by educative measures designed for children in part, and also for adults, 
is, by general testimony, as yet only well begun. The draft of 1917-18 
showed wide prevalence — reaching above 50 per cent, in some localities — 
of physical defects sufficient to exclude men from obligatory military 
service. These figures have been extensively misinterpreted and misused 
in certain species of educational propaganda. Nevertheless, admitting 
great rashness in their use, they indicate large fields for early inquiry as 
to opportunities for education toward health conservation and increase. 

The standards employed in the draft first need examination from the 
standpoint of civilian needs. To what extent were the detects recorded 
those that would lessen efficiency and satisfaction in non-military life? 
In some cases it is certain that defects — for example, those necessitating 
glasses — that might cause rejection from army service can now readily be 
corrected sufficiently for most civilian vocations. 

Again, to what extent are the defects discovered attributable to causes 
which are in large part hereditary ? Which could have been prevented by 
early medical attention ? By early educational service ? 



36 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

The foundations of a sound system of physical education can be laid 
only through extensive social and medical studies of the kinds here sug- 
gested. 

Civic shortages are by common consent abundant in democratic Amer- 
ica. And yet, though we talk freely enough about them, the fact is that 
we have less accurate data as to their kinds and locations than we have 
even about health shortages. Convicted criminals, tramps, and some other 
parasites are easily recognized as drags upon the progress of the state — 
but altogether they make up a very small minority. What of the rest — 
in what respects are they, or distinguishable classes or groups of them, 
bad, ineffective, fair, or good contributors to civic health and strength? 
Here lies a very extensive field for civic inquiry. No adequate curricula, 
or even courses of civic education, can be developed until we know far 
more about the sociological foundations of the contemporary civic situation 
in America than any one knows now. 

What, for example, are the ascertainable "prevailing civic shortages" 
of that social class or group that we can designate as "college men in 
business" — shortages that should cause us to modify our civic education 
of those who will constitute this group a generation hence? Are "men 
high-school teachers over thirty years of age" good or bad citizens — and 
especially as respects what classes of civic virtues? What are the civic 
assets and civic liabilities conferred on America "prevailingly" by immi- 
grant Russian Jews over twenty-five years of age? By our negro immi- 
grants to the north? By "owning farmers"? 

Proper analytical study of prevailing civic shortages should reveal 
specific needs" of education. Are some of our worse defects due to 
ignorance-of economics ? Or to low ideals of patriotism ? Or to ignorance 
of the structure and functions of governmental mechanisms? Back of 
these are certain obscure problems on which we need enlightenment. The 
"boys of '76" — as those also of 1812, 1847, 1861, 1898, and 1917 — were 
composed largely of relatively "good" citizens. Whence came their "good" 
qualities? Are social conditions producing similar or better qualities 
to-day? What adjustments of civic education would have to be made to 
"correct" defects? 

Culture shortages are doubtless numerous and harmful among Ameri- 
cans — and education of the right kind is the obvious remedy. But what, 
in particular, are these cultural shortages? And in what specific respects 
are they hurtful? Broadly speaking, we have as yet only guesses — and 
largely guesses from partizan or biased sources at that — in answer to 
these questions. 



• WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY? 37 

We spend much money and much time on music, general reading, pic- 
tures, and travel. We are said to care little for high-grade spoken drama, 
sculpture, poetry, expressive dancing. We are constantly told that our 
taste for the esthetic qualities of form and color in the numberless sur- 
roundings or adjuncts of life is low — that is, that our artistic "demands" 
on producers of clothes, furniture, houses, bookbindings, and other articles 
of use or decoration are far below what they should be. 

Sociology has not been prolific of studies of the social functions of the 
fine arts. But how can we develop programs of "esthetic" and other 
forms of cultural education if we possess no adequate analyses of present 
attainments and present shortages? 

Vocational shortages have, probably, been brought more into scientific 
relief than have other kinds thus far. Standards of vocational proficiency 
are established by commercial conditions far more effectively than are 
standards of cultural, civic, or even health "efficiency." Nevertheless, we 
are still far from having evolved programs of education through schools 
adequate to prevent serious vocational shortages or defects in the rising 
generation. We recognize vaguely the great futility and cruelty of "pick- 
up" vocational education — that by which nearly 90 per cent, of all the 
60,000,000 adult workers of to-day acquired their present productive 
powers. We witness a slow but steady decline in the effectiveness of 
apprenticeship vocational education as the mechanical age supervenes upon 
the ages of handicraft production. We realize that neither individual 
nor collective well-being of most satisfactory kinds is practicable without 
adapted and trained abilities in productive work. But, in spite of this 
knowledge, we hesitate to commit the state or other public agency to 
extensive schemes of vocational education. We need still to be reassured 
as to specific needs, specific objectives, specific methods. The first two 
only a well developed educational sociology can provide. 

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS 

1. The Educational Functions of Non-School Social Groups (Smith, 
Walter R., Introduction to Educational Sociology, Ch. 5-7). 

2. The Socialization of Schools (ref. as in i, Ch. 13-15). 

3. In what ways would ampler knowledge of sociology than we yet possess 
help us to decide America's needs for vocational education through free 
public schools? (Snedden, D., Vocational Education, Ch. i). 

4. What kinds of sociological knowledge would you want if you were 
given responsibility for introducing a comprehensive scheme of physical 



38 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

education into schools? (Spencer, H., Education (Ch. 4); Divine, 
E. T., Misery and Its Causes (Ch. 2, Out of Health) ; and Warbasse, J. 
P., Medical Sociology (Ch. 4, Some Medical Aspects of Civilization).) 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Ellwood^ C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 16, Educa- 
tion and Social Progress). 

Smith, W. R. An Introduction to Educational Sociology (Ch. i. Sociol- 
ogy and Its Relation to Education). 

Snedden, D. Sociological Determination of Educational Objectives (Ch. 
I, The Meaning of Educational Sociology). 

vSi'ENCER, H. Education. (All chapters are good, but the first is especially 
suggestive.) 

Ward, L. F. Dynamic Sociology (Ch. 14, Education). 

Ward, L. F. Applied Sociology (Ch. 13, Problems of Applied Sociology). 



CHAPTER IV 

SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE reader as amateur sociologist : You, the reader, are a member of 
many societies ; you have had experience with strong societies and 
with weak societies, with old and with new societies, with societies that 
have helped, and with others that have hindered you. They have assured 
to you security, livelihood, justice, knowledge, and fellowship. You have 
given to them money, time, labor, devotion, perhaps blood. You have at 
least as much knowledge of societies as the frontiersman had of forests 
and storms and game. In a way he was perforce a naturalist, and so 
in a way are you perforce a sociologist. Do not think that sociology is 
all mystery, though it has its many unsolved problems. Preliminary to 
reading the later sections you can profitably try to give out of your 
experience reasonably complete answers to these questions. Your own 
answers, even when sketchy and conjectural, will show the varied character 
of the sociological data of which you now possess some knowledge. 

1. In what family groups have you had membership ? What have they done 
for you? What have you done for them? 

2. Have you had considerable personal experience with gangs, cliques, mobs, 
or crowdsf Has the "world" been helped or harmed by such of these social 
groups as you have known? Have their members been helped or harmed by 
such membership ? 

3. Whether you desired it or not, you have been a citizen (in at least a 
non-technical sense) of one or more cities, states, and nations. What did 
these exact from you in conformity, taxes, and other "values"? What did 
they give you? What did you voluntarily give them? 

4. You have worked for employers — individual, corporate, or the state; you 
have employed workers to serve you — waitresses, dentists, railroads, police- 
men. In each case what were the advantages to you? To the others? Did 
you commonly give more than you received? Why? 

5. Similarly you have bought from sellers — of groceries, books, music, 
scenery; and you have sold something — teaching, wheat, needlework, medical 
skill. Of what advantage were you to those who bought from you? To those 



40 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

selling to you? What advantages have they brought to you? Ordinarily, 
have you given more than you received (in real values), or the reverse? 

6. What advantages do you find in joint worship with others? Do these 
seem due chiefly to fellowship, to the fit surroundings made possible 
by cooperation, or to the inspiring leadership so made possible? What 
contributions are you conscious of having made to the worth of joint 
worship ? 

7. What are the characteristics of your political party membership, or of 
your membership in other organizations to which you contribute little rnore 
than membership dues? If you felt very keenly the need of effecting changes 
in some form of community practice, or of accomplishing some other reform, 
how would you organize your efforts to do it? What kind of people 
would you seek to organize or otherwise influence ? What kinds of mem- 
bers have contributed more to parties to which you have belonged than 
have you? 

8. What kinds of companionship or fellowship do you normally crave — that 
of people very like yourself, or that of people very different from yourself? 
In the latter case do you give as much as you receive of fellowship or so- 
ciability? Can one give too much of fellowship? What differences have you 
noticed between country-bred and city-bred people as respects "companion- 
ability"? Can you account for them? 

9. What are some social groups with which you have had experience that 
are very old? Some that are very young? Some now in disrepute? Some 
that you now regard as having been unduly aggressive, perhaps predatory? 

10. Every mature person has had so much social experience as to the values 
of social groups that fairly adequate answers to questions like these should be 
easily possible: 

a. What, in your experience, is the chief value of the monogamous family 
(as contrasted with other forms) to: (i) its very young children; (2) its 
children fifteen years of age and upward; (3) the man or father of the 
family; (4) the woman or mother of the family; (5) the neighborhood; (6) 
the state? 

h. What are usual positive (good) or negative (harmful) values of the 
"clique" or small "set" respectively to: (i) member of the clique; (2) older 
non-members of the clique; (3) the neighborhood or larger institution. 

Answer in the same way with reference to bands, gangs, mobs, and crowds. 

c. What are the advantages and disadvantages respectively of a small town, 
a large city, the American state, and a powerful nation to these: (i) a young 
man between sixteen and twenty without property; (2) a middle-aged woman 
rearing small children? 

Why are these instrumentalities used by one or more of the political or- 
ganizations just named: (i) battleships; (2) courts of justice; (3) free high- 
ways; (4) public schools; (5) ambassadors; (6) legislative bodies? 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 41 

d. In the economic organization of the United States, of what use is: (i) 
the Minnesota farmer to the Massachusetts shoemaker; (2) the immigrant 
laborer to the American employer; (3) the corporation to working-men of low 
intelligence; (4) the Brazilian coffee-grower to citizens of New York; (5) 
the factory labor of girls of sixteen years of age to school-teachers and others 
of the "intellectual" classes; (6) the service of bankers to the rest of us; (7) 
the competency of hired soldiers in the standing army to the farmers of the 
country ? 

e. Of what use is religion to: (i) worshipers; (2) non-worshipers'; (3) 
the state, or society, at large ? 

/. Of what use is a political party, a sect, or cultural organization to: 
(i) its own members; (2) members of other similar organizations; (3) the 
neighborhood; (4) the country at large? When are reform parties a bad 
thing? What is an "ism" — and is it usually good or bad in time of peace? 
In time of war? 

g. Under what circumstances are the following good or bad respectively to: 
their intimate members; the relatives of their intimate members and 
the public at large: (i) fraternities and sororities; (2) social clubs; 
(3) commercialized dances; (4) tavern and saloon gatherings; (5) card 
parties; (6) street associations of children; (7) other specified forms of 
social recreation? 

II. Older persons have seen much more of social group evolution than 
younger; nevertheless any observant person can give fairly satisfactory 
answers to questions like these : 

a. What are some of the social groups into which children are born? What 
are some that they almost necessarily , join? What are others with reference 
to which they are free to join or not? 

h. What are some social groups that are hundreds of years old? Some that 
have arisen within the last year or two ? How does the congregation of a 
church known to you take in new members, adapt them, and finally make 
them useful to it? How are "like-minded" persons selected when a new 
party or social group is to be formed? 

c. Show how, in certain social groups like the family, a corporation, a 
church, a town, or a party, some members dominate whilst others submit. Are 
the latter usually the young or the middle-aged, the mentally strong or the 
mentally weak, the bold or the timid, the fluent or the speech-handicapped? 
Many modern groups become regimented through specialization of function — 
an army, a factory, a large farm, a large school. In what respects is this 
process usually advantageous, and in what disadvantageous, to the various 
individuals concerned? 

d. Is it helpful to understanding to contend that nations, or churches, or 
political parties correspond to living beings in that they have their time of 
youth, of maturity, and of final death or dissolution? 



42 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

e. What are essential differences between the "biological" and the "sociologi- 
cal" inheritance? Are these part of the American social inheritance and how 
do you estimate their values: (i) the poems of Dante; (2) gunpowder; (3) 
the art of writing; (4) the science of agriculture; (5) the cleared lands of 
New York State; (5) the naturalwaterfalls of New York; (6) telegraphy; 
(7) the public-school system? 

/. Are the means of subsistence for mankind limited? Does man, like other 
organic beings, tend to multiply in geometric ratio ? What are several possible 
causes' to which are probably due: (i) the famines in Russia and China; (2) 
the Great War; (3) the poverty of the people of Labrador; (4) the dense 
populations of Massachusetts and Belgium? 

How shall we explain the currents of migration now flowing over the 
earth ? 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL GROUPS \ 

Social groups have evolved along different lines according to the services 
they render to their members or to other social groups. From the stand- 
point of society the family group functions primarily in the rearing of 
children and cooperative utilization. The horde, band, gang, clique, host, 
mob, and crowd function primarily for the security of their members in 
the performance of activities more or less instinctive. The guild, company, 
union, corporation, and army function primarily for cooperative produc- 
tion, defense, and aggression. The various political community groups, 
such as the countryside district, village, town, city, county, province, state, 
nation, federation, and empire, have evolved, first as organizations defensive 
against external foes, then as means of promoting internal order, and 
finally as agencies of certain kinds of production, utilization, and perhaps 
aggression. Churches and religious denominations have organized first for 
joint worship, then for the education and expansion of organizations of 
the faithful, and for the protection of cooperating members. The innumer- 
able parties, sects, cults, and other voluntary organizations of those of 
like minds or like purposes function primarily in attaining certain objectives 
assumed to be of importance to the members or to general social well-being. 
Fellowship groupings, also of many varieties, many more or less tem- 
porary, are formed to gratify the normal impulses of sociability, but they 
frequently expand into other social relationships. 

^ For a very attractive analysis read Part I of J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy (The 
Beginnings of Cooperation, Order, and Liberty). 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 43 

The longevity of social groups is commonly greater than that of 
their members. There are living social organizations with hundreds, if 
not thousands, of years of history. Members die but the accepted institu- 
tional traditions and forms persist. Each child is born into certain groups 
— such as the family, the neighborhood community, and the nation. Into 
others — such as economic and fellowship groups — he is practically forced 
by circumstances. He voluntarily joins or is admitted to others, often after 
considerable periods of probation. Parties as well as some religious' and 
other groups take in only like-minded members who have already given 
evidences of adhesion to their standards. In all kinds of social groups 
immature members are consciously or unconsciously passed through vari- 
ous processes of adjustment to the general standards of the group — the 
process of socialization or social control. 

Variability of membership^ — as to age, native strength, length of expe- 
rience, training, moral qualities, health, wealth, cooperative powers, and the 
like — is characteristic of all social groups. Members having the most of 
these qualities exert more than the average influence on those having the 
least. The strong attain to prestige, leadership, ascendancy, guidance, 
dominance. The less strong obey, follow leadership, and play minor parts. 
Furthermore, within any type of social group there are always present 
tendencies toward specialization of function. The leaders differentiate 
their followers — technical specialists from general workers, the respon- 
sible from the irresponsible. In economic, political, religious, and even 
party groupings there crop up tendencies toward regimentation, which 
have been carried very far indeed in the modern army, corporation, and 
political party. "Good" membership in any social group implies at least 
either ready instinctive adaptation; the habit of obedience motivated 
by fear, love, or ambition; or else sufficient perception of the advan- 
tages of group action to produce conscious conformity to the needs of 
the group. 

In the course of social evolution not merely do individuals come and 
go in all social groups, but in the more comprehensive societies numberless 
social groups are born, grow into maturity, show signs of old age, and 
in very many cases pass away, leaving an inheritance of good or evil to be 
disposed of by other societies. History is a record of cities, states, and 
nations that have played their part on the stage of time, and then have 
given place to other actors. There survive in England and elsewhere many 
vestigial remains of the medieval guilds of industry, commerce, war, re- 
ligion, and the professions that for so long dominated Europe and parts 



44 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of Asia. The short history of the United States records the rise and 
disappearance of many political parties and a far greater number of sec- 
tarian promotional organizations. Contemporary civilization contains only 
a few religious denominations, fraternal bodies, and the like, that have 
recorded histories of more than five hundred years. 

The social inheritance may be considered in its general or in its specihc 
aspects.^ Practical arts, political ideas, scientific knowledge, religious ex- 
perience, and customs of social behavior accumulated through many cen- 
turies are to-day the possessions of the entire civilized world. Within 
each particular social group may be found also a considerable inheritance 
of ideals, knowledge, instrumentalities, habits of procedure, and beliefs. 
These may be studied in particular families, specific corporations, individual 
cities, and more comprehensively in nations, religious denominations, and 
established parties. Man differs very completely from all other animal 
species as respects his ability to accumulate experience, to conserve over 
many generations various types of products, and thus to evolve an enormous 
social inheritance. A recent thinker describes him as a "time-binding" 
animal. Civilized society to-day possesses stores of inventions, tools, high- 
ways, cleared lands, language, organized knowledge, arts, customs, laws, 
and ideals of almost unimaginable variety and magnitude, and in many 
instances of great age. Notwithstanding that man probably possesses 
fewer specific instincts (though probably he is endowed with more general 
or impulsive tendencies) than most other species, his social inheritance 
gives him an absolutely unique mastery of animals, plants, and natural 
forces. He shapes the earth to his needs, domesticates animals, develops 
knowledge of remote things, conceives and projects higher purposes for 
life, evolves endless new wants, and then searches for the means of satisfy- 
ing them. Frequently he makes of himself a very artificial creature as 
judged against the background of his biological inheritance. He tends 
often to overcultivate Himself, to overburden mind and body, and so com- 
plexly to organize his life that, like the mastodon, and the great horned 
elk of Ireland, the stock tends to break down through the overdevelop- 
ment of th^ individual, especially as that results in sterility of many individ- 
uals, and perhaps of the stock. 

Multiplication of numbers takes place in the human species as in other 
organic forms of • lif e.^ It was claimed by Malthus that the means of 
subsistence can be increased only in arithmetical ratio, whereas organic 

"See Ross, Principles (Part IV, Social Products). 

'Giddings, F., Elements of Sociology (Ch. 2 and 3, Aggregations of Population). 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 45 

beings tend to multiply in geometric ratio. In the natural order competi- 
tion, then conflict, and finally extermination of excess population through 
"positive checks" follow. But parallel to these destructive processes co- 
operations necessary to strengthen group life are also produced by natural 
evolution. Among most human beings competition during the last hundred 
centuries has unquestionably operated to increase the magnitude, and to 
improve the internal organization, of the competing groups, whether we 
think of these as nations, armies, department stores, universities, or the 
readers of an established newspaper. In a crowded world struggles for 
food and other means of subsistence may transcend all other forms of 
struggle, such as those begotten by competing systems of worship, search 
for knowledge, pursuit of beauty, or interest in fellowship. There are 
those who see in recorded history the dominance of economic forces, 
producing what is sometimes called "economic determinism." To eco- 
nomic forces are ascribed not only most migrations, wars, and ad- 
vances in knowledge, but also much of modern achievement toward 
justice, education, and other worldly aspirations — at least, by the "eco- 
nomic determinists." * 



KINDS OF SOCIAL GROUPS" 

Social groups are obviously of many kinds. Some, like the compact 
family, the crew of a small ship, pupils in a class room, a college fraternity, 
and the regular guests in a small boarding-house, are not only small, but 
the members are thrown into frequent contact, and are perhaps very inter- 
dependent upon one another for aid and companionship. Others, like a 
large congregation, the workers in a gigantic factory, the guests of a 
hotel, the co-investors in a corporation, or the citizens of a municipality, are 
so large that mutual acquaintance of members is not practicable, and 
consciousness of interdependencies may at times become faint. When we 
come to such gigantic, but nevertheless very real, social groups as nations, 
religious denominations, national brotherhoods of carpenters or other 
manual workers, or the "Slavic race," it is readily evident that, while 
certain degrees 6f "consciousness of kind" must exist, and a keen sense 
of interdependence may awaken in time of crisis, nevertheless personal con- 

*This subject is carefully examined by A. J. Todd in his Theories of Social Prog- 
ress (Ch. 14 and 15). 

" For a very helpful analysis see C. H. Cooley, Social Organisation (Ch 3, Primary 
Groups). 



46 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tacts of members are few, and "group consciousness" is to be found fully 
developed only among the more imaginative leaders. 

Impersonal social groups become especially significant under condi- 
tions of civilized society, even though to the naive mind the interde- 
pendencies of men at a distance from one another may seem more mythical 
than real. Certain people in Brazil produce the coffee that we use at 
breakfast. Do they and we constitute a kind of "social group," since 
without us their coffee would be valueless and without them our breakfast 
would be without savor? Sociologically, yes. Scripture and science 
can here join hands and contend that these coffee-growers are, in Old 
Testament parlance, "our brothers" and, in New Testament words, "our 
neighbors." 

Ten thousand years ago the peoples of one river valley were probably 
no more dependent upon the peoples of another river valley than are the 
people of the United States now dependent upon the hypothetical in- 
habitants of Mars. No obligations were owed, no rights could be 
claimed. But now in very real ways, first of all economically, but 
also increasingly in political and other respects, we become members "one 
of another." ^ 

England cannot prosper without India, Massachusetts without Min- 
nesota, Patagonia without France. Ten thousand men whom I have never 
seen, and of whose personalities I know all too little, directly serve me when 
I travel by rail from New York to Chicago. Many times ten thousand 
have, indeed, served me during the last century in opening the way and 
getting that road ready. And, normally, I reimburse them in full for 
the service they render by the service (or command over service) that 
I give for my transportation. 

To our instinctive nature there is something inhumane, almost pitiful 
and tragic, in these impersonal reciprocities of service. The transient 
guest in the modern hotel is waited upon by a hundred servitors about 
whom he knows nothing personally and can hope to know notliing. Be- 
tween employer and employee, citizen and representative, editor and 
reader, merchant and buyer, in our vast modern enterprises there can 
usually develop no personal intimacies, and there can be produced at best 
only meager mutuality of comprehension and social interest, apart from 
the particular reciprocation of service that occasions and justifies the 
specific contact made. 

'For a vivid analysis read Wells, Social Forces (pp. 112-155, The Great State) ; 
also Wallas, Great Society (Ch. i). 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 47 

Social interdependence becomes, then, the final test of "social cohesion," 
of society^ Are individuals knit together by bonds of some kind of in- 
terests, visible or invisible, conscious or unconscious, personal or imper- 
sonal? Wherever such bonds exist, we have, for purposes of sociology, 
societies, social groups, social structures. Social groups may live visibly 
and comfortably side by side, as in villages, nations, schools, and house- 
holds — the "component" societies of Professor Giddings. Or they may be 
composed of widely scattered individuals linked together by faintly seen 
threads of communication, similarity of interest, or some other kind 
of interdependence. The optometrists of the United States, perhaps only 
one or a few to a city, are nevertheless, for some purposes, a social group. 
In a sense hardly less real but much less tangible, the users of electricity 
from a central plant, the subscribers to the Atlantic Monthly, the readers 
of Harry Franck's books, and the lovers of Wagner constitute, scien- 
tifically at least, "social groups." So also do the group of miners who pro- 
duce nitrates in Chili and the group of farmers who buy the resulting fer- 
tilizers. "My best friend is my most resolute enemy," says Undershaft 
in Major Barbara, "since he does so much to keep me up to my best." 
Those whom we must fight in order to insure our security or wealth or 
freedom are, too, in the final analysis, members of one or more of 
our social groupings, of the many "societies" in which we have volun- 
tary or enforced membership, and to which sooner or later we must 
account. 

Types of social groups can conveniently be analyzed along several lines 
besides function. "Small groups" can be distinguished from "large 
groups"; primary groups or societies from secondary; associate from 
federate; and personal from impersonal. 'Obviously these classifications 
are crude and in each case show large twilight zones. But no one has diffi- 
culty in apprehending that a family is a small, primary, associate, and per- 
sonal group ; whilst the stockholders of the United States Steel Corporation 
constitute a large, secondary, federate, impersonal social group. Perhaps 
it will prove more profitable to speak of degrees of smallness, personality, 
and the like in stated groups. 

These distinctions have very important bearings on programs of social 
economy, and especially of education. It is evident, for example, that 
within small, personal, associate groups much education toward like- 
mindedness and control takes place as a by-product of the exercise of the 

^ For a most interesting, even though classic, discussion read W. Bagehot, Physics 
and Politics (Ch. 3 and 4, Nation Making). 



48 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

primary functions of these groups ; whereas similar education is neces- 
sarily rare in large, impersonal, federate groups. The formal, special- 
ized functions of government appear only when political communities grow 
beyond the magnitudes of village communities. An old Massachusetts 
town may long persist as an "associate" group, wherever such govern- 
mental functions as local legislation and election can be performed in 
face-to-face meetings. But, as they increase in size, political action takes 
place through channels of documented communication, and often in charge 
of appointed delegates or representatives. 



FUNCTIONAL SOCIAL GROUPINGS CLASSIFIED^ 

1. Kinship or genetic groups are based, first upon marriage, and then 
upon real or assumed common descent. They can conveniently be divided 
into those more compact groups which function primarily in the rearing 
of the young, and those derivative groups among primitive peoples that 
develop a variety of quasi-political functions : 

a. Families, including : conjugal pairs ; parents and children in the 
ordinary monogamous family ; the "lineage" family, including several gen- 
erations, and kindred by blood or marriage; the "household" family, in- 
cluding servants, dependents, and retinue. 

b. Ethnic groups include: clans; phratries; tribes; and tribal fed- 
erations., 

2. Political groups /lormally depend upon common occupation of terri- 
tory, and include all dwellers, holding them to responsibilities for conform- 
ity where they are not deemed worthy of "freemen's" political powers. 
They function primarily in providing for defense and insuring order. Well 
known examples can be differentiated : village community or hamlet ; 
parish; shire; town; county; municipality; city-state; province-state or 
commonwealth ; kingdom ; nation ; empire ; league. 

3. Company groups,, as the term is here used, include a great variety of 
relatively impermanent societies, commonly formed of persons rendered 
at least temporarily "like-minded" by similarity of tastes, inspiration, 
sentiment, or need. Predatory bands, social cliques, instinctive gangs, 
angry mobs, curious crowds, and swarming hosts are examples. For the 
time being they are "companions" to each other, bound together, often, 
by a single dominating impulse, even though very unhke one another in 
all other respects. 

* Compare F. Giddings, Principles of Sociology (Ch. 3 and 4, Book II). 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 49 

4. Service groupings, or in a broad sense economic societies, are of 
many kinds : 

a. Co-working groups, bound together by similarity of work and result- 
ing condition, even where selling services or products in competition with 
one another : guilds, labor unions, stockholders, partners, grange of farmers, 
professional association, crews, regiments, classes (of scholars), trusts, 
and the like. Here can be included also certain economic "classes" 
made such by assumed similarity of interests — farmers, "workers" 
(certain types of manual laborers), seafarers, technicians, capitalists, and 
the like. 

b. Employer-employee combinations formed because of complementary 
relations to total productive processes, in relationship of leader and led, 
master and apprentice, capital provider and labor provider, entrepreneur 
and servitor. Similar interdependencies are also found between master 
•and slave, teacher and pupil, voter and office-holder, corporation and 
trade union. 

c. Buyer-seller combinations or "exchange groupings" are usually much 
more ephemeral than employer-employee groups, although at bottom they 
rest on the same necessities — namely, the reciprocal advantages of differ- 
entiating contributions to production. Both these forms of social rela- 
tionship have this peculiar quality, that, whereas they are occasioned by 
probabilities of mutual advantage, they bring individuals together in an 
attitude of competition. This competition is not, usually, for the whole 
product but for certain marginal parts. 

5. Party groups will here include all associations deliberately formed 
to promote particular policies, extend the acceptance of certain ideas or 
beliefs, or for other distinctive ends. There are included : political, re- 
ligious, and other parties; sects; cults; schools of thought; "societies" (for 
special purposes) ; and "isms." 

6. Religious groups are of several kinds, including: 

a. The mystic "association" formed in worship between man and the 
deity or unseen personalities whom he invokes in worship. 

b. The congregation of joint worshipers, including monastic orders. 

c. The "church" or denomination in its more federate aspects. 

7. Sociability groupings, sometimes temporary, but often persistent in 
a kind of institutionalized form as fraternities, clubs, tavern gatherings, 
fairs, dances, and receptions. 

8. "Class" groups. Where large numbers of persons possess similarities 
of qualities or develop similarities of interest or need, there may long 
appear no significant "consciousness of kind." But the progressive appear- 



50 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ance of opposed qualities or interests will often serve to bring- them into 
some kind of coalescence or affiliation that gives rise to real and vast, even 
though vague, social groupings that under some conditions are capable of 
exerting gigantic influences. Among these should be included : races ; 
castes; Christianity; Islamism; socialists; agnostics; ruling classes; nobili- 
ties ; "east-siders" ; club-women ; intelligentsia ; scientists ; the erudite ; half- 
breeds; proletarians; capitalists; bourgeoisie; barbarians; Asiatics; "the 
white race" ; and many others. 



TOPICS AND PROBLEMS 

1. Sources of Social Groups (Ross, Principles, Ch. 48). 

2. Origins of Social Classes (Giddings, Principles, Ch. i, Book II). 

3. The Relation of Social Groups to the Individual (Hayes, E, C, Intro- 
duction to the Study of Sociology, Ch. 24). 

4. What are essential differences between school groups (classes, student 

bodies) and other social groups? 

5. Discuss some kinds of present-day education that seem to contribute 

to "good group membership." 

6. What is meant by the "sociahzation" of education? 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

CooLEY^ C. H. Social Organization (Ch. 6-10, Communication). 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Organization (Ch. 36, Some Phases of the Larger 
Will). 

Ellwood^ C. a. An Introduction to Social Psychology (Ch. 14, The Na- 
ture of Society). 

Giddings, F. Principles (Ch. 3, Bk. II, The Social Composition). 

Kelsey^ Carl. The Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 4, The Evolution of 
Man). 

Robinson, J. H. The Mind in the Making (Ch. 6, Our Animal Heritage; 
Ch. 7, Our Savage Mind). 

Ross, E. A. The Foundations of Sociology (Ch. 6, The Properties of 
Group LTnits). 

Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 33-35, Social Groups, etc.). 

Smith, W. R. An Introduction to Educational Sociology (Ch. 4-6, The 
Primary Social Groups). 



SOCIETIES OR SOCIAL GROUPS 51 

Sumner^ W. G. Folkways (Ch. i, Fundamental Notions). 
Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture (Ch. 16, Early Societies). 
Ward, Lester F. Outlines of Sociology (Ch. 8, The Mechanics of So- 
ciety) . 



CHAPTER V 

FAMILY GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE social group about which you know most is the family. From 
babyhood you have been in and of one family, and you have had 
intimate contacts with others. As child, adolescent, and adult, you have 
heard families, and members of families, endlessly weighed, condemned, 
or commended. You have seen families go "on the rocks," sometimes for 
reasons that did not escape you. If you have not yet formed a new family 
of your own, you have at least thought often about possibilities. 

You have known and read of many persons who were obviously the 
products of good families — good in blood, in customs, in knowledge, and in 
civic outlook. Perhaps you know little — we all know too little — of what 
constitutes good and efifective family life among Chinese, Russians, Span- 
iards, and even Turks and Hindoos. The social traditions of those who 
settled the United States — religious and domestic traditions especially — 
have contributed largely to respect for women, kindliness to children, strong 
faith in education, and abhorrence of sexual looseness. These have all 
favored the development of a strong normal family life. The individualism 
fostered by the frontier, and by political and religious independence, the 
constant migrations of old settlers as well as the immigration of the new, 
and the greeds of large numbers for wealth and prestige, have worked to 
disintegrate the family. We have long been horrified at our divorce rates, 
and only now are we beginning to appreciate the portentous character of 
the "differential race suicide" that prevails among our more prosperous 
people. 

Not only have you learned much about the family as a social institu- 
tion : you have become aware of the multitude of "problems" that cluster 
around it. There are some who think the ways and means of family-rear- 
ing too archaic and cumbersome to meet the demands of modern civiliza- 
tion. The household is uneconomical, unscientific, ill adapted to contem- 
porary conditions — so they say. Perhaps these critics do not see the 
family in its full biological and sociological significance. In terms of 
evolution the monogamous family, and the "home" or "household" which 
that family has created, serve primarily for the rearing of children from 
infancy into youth. All other functions are incidental to this. If better 
means can be discovered for this task, means of a more scientific and 
"advanced" character, society will surely adopt them, as it has adopted 

52 



FAMILY GROUPS 53 



improved means of healing, tilling the soil, educating, governing, and 
manufacturing. 

Out of your sociological experience and appreciations find as many and 
as complete answers to these questions as practicable : 

1. For what reasons do you suppose that the monogamous family has come 
to prevail among the civilized peoples of the world? 

2. What seem to be, at least in temperate zones, the inherent disadvantages 
to society of the polygamous family? 

3. Having in mind citizens of at least moderately good education and of 
at least the second generation in this country, what do you think are prevalent 
American standards and attitudes of "family life" as regards: wage-earning 
occupations of the wife; size of family; prolongation of parental care and 
provision of education; prolonged and intimate family interest in collateral 
relatives either by blood or marriage — such as cousins, uncles, aunts, 
nephews, etc. ? 

4. Does it appear to you that the family as an educational agency is gaining 
or losing in effectiveness ? Discuss separately such aspects as : making chil- 
dren religious; development of moral self-control, adapted to modern, and 
especially urban, conditions ; transmission of vocational skills or preparing the 
young for vocations; transmission of cultural inheritance or properly advanc- 
ing the young in culture; the promotion of ideals and practices making 
for physical well-being. 

5. Out of your experience, what seem to you to be the chief causes of 
"broken families" ? Discuss separately : migratory occupations ; decay of 
religious beliefs; family discipline; ill health; and other causes. 

6. What are the facts regarding the prevalence of divorce in the United 
States? What, in your observation, is the comparative frequency of divorce 
among : farmers ; migratory artisan laborers ; theatrical folk ; migratory per- 
sonal service (barbers, waiters, etc.); colored people; recent immigants from 
Protestant countries ; Catholic immigrants ; people of college education ? 

7. In what respects does it seem to you that divorce should be regarded as 
in itself a social disease? In what respects should it be regarded as a 
symptom or surface manifestation of more underlying social diseases? What 
are these ? Discuss separately, from the standpoint of education, occupational 
ambitions, religious affiliations, and culture. 

8. What are "approved" American standards as to age of marriage of : 
(a) professional and other very ambitious workers; (b) farmers; (c) labor- 
ers ? What are approved ages among recent immigrant Italians, Jews, Scandi- 
navians ? What effects have "ages" of approved marriage on : length of 
"courtship"? Sex morality of boys and young men? Sex morality of girls 
and young women? 

To what are these age standards primarily due? To the expectation that 



54 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the man should be able to "support a family" before he marries? Or to the 
desire that both parties shall be mature enough to undertake family obligations? 
Statistics show that a very large number of "wage-earning" women are 
from sixteen to twenty-four years of age. Of all wage-earning women work- 
ers probably from 50 per cent, (among the better educated and highly paid) 
to 90 per cent, (among less educated Catholics and Jews, and especially from 
the less well paid vocations) are married before thirty years of age. What 
are the probable effects on subsequent family life of this period of pre-marriage 
wage-earning ? 

9. In America, as in many other of the highly civilized countries, it appears 
that the birth rate has been declining during the last half-century or more. 
Further analysis seems to show that such decline has been most marked 
among: the prosperous, as contrasted with the unprosperous ; the well edu- 
cated as against the poorly educated; the "old stock" as against the immi- 
grant; the adherents of Protestant as against the adherents of older theo- 
logical faiths. This "differential" birth rate is believed to operate often to 
the "race suicide" of the biologically superior strands or stocks among the 
peoples concerned. (But it is usually paralleled by a marked decrease in 
death rates.) 

Do you interpret these phenomena as "bad" or "good" for family life ? For 
the state? For society at large? If, among a certain stock {e.g., the descend- 
ants of the Puritans), the marriage rate is 70 per cent, of all adults; and 
20 per cent, of all marriages are infertile; whilst in the remaining families 
three children on the average reached maturity; would the descendants of 
such stock increase or decrease from generation to generation? 

What motives for "small family" are socially to be approved? Disap- 
proved? In a wholesome society to what extent should "standards of living" 
be permitted to curtail size of family? How do comfort of parents and good 
of society seem here to conflict? 

In what ways is size of family i-elated to: infant mortality; premature 
child labor; malnutrition of children? 

Would a considerably diminished birth rate probably be a good thing for 
China? India? Russia? Japan? New Zealand? California? The Mon- 
gols? Would it do more^harm or good if confined largely to the economically 
or educationally superior among these peoples? 

10. In what respects and for what classes of people do you regard celibacy 
as being socially beneficial ; socially harmful ? In what respects do you regard 
long postponement of marriage as being socially advantageous? Disadvan- 
tageous ? 

11. In what respects', and for what social groups especially, do you regard 
the limitation of size of family below the point at which the class concerned 
can maintain its own numbers as being socially advantageous? Disadvan- 
tageous ? 



FAMILY GROUPS 55 



12. In what ways does it appear that the relative size of families in certain 
social groups is related to standards of living? Directly? Inversely? 

13. Why are modern social economists apprehensive of differential "race or 
stock suicide"? 

14. Discuss contemporary proposals for enhancing the educational efficacy of 
the family. 

15. Discuss contemporary tendencies that seem to diminish the educational 
efficacy of the family for young people beyond the age of twelve. Separately 
consider: development of schools; development of commercialized and mu- 
nicipal recreations; development of wage-earning employments for the young; 
child-labor legislation; present tendencies in urban housing; and others. 

16. Is the family group an economical group for purposes of cooperative 
utilization, having in view the accessory processes of elaboration, such as 
food preparation; clothing repair; and recreational service? 

17. Comment on current proposals for collective rearing of children, and 
substitution of collective food preparation and other processes. 



THE FAMILY AS A SOCIAL GROUP ^ 

The family group, sociologically speaking, is strongly characterized by 
the deep-rooted instincts making for the mating of men and women, the 
affectionately protective attitude of the mother toward her offspring, the 
combatively protective attitude of the father toward his dependents, mutual 
jealousy of infidelity, enforced socialization of younger members, and the 
cooperation of brothers — which all underlie it. This type of social group 
is almost unique in the unlikeness of its members as to sex, age and powers. 
Along with this goes, obviously, extreme interdependence. Urban life 
lessens or disguises some of these, but if we consider the historic past, 
it is apparent that, both as respects economic needs and also the satis- 
faction of instincts of companionship, parental members of the 
family are greatly interdependent, whilst, having in mind all ages, chil- 
dren first are heavily dependent upon parents and, later, parents upon 
children. 

The family group is obviously one of the most ancient of all social 
groupings among the higher vertebrates. To its biological characteristics 
human society adds many qualities, such as prolongation of care of the 
young, religious and legal sanction for the institution of marriage, and 
the development of patrimony in various forms.^ 

* Consult J. Q. Dealey, The Family in Its Sociological Aspects. 
^ See H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology (Part II, Primitive Families), and 
W. Goodsell, The Family (Ch. 2, The Primitive Family). 



56 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Polygamous, and in a few cases polyandrous, family organizations seem 
to have been the by-products of the incessant warfare of peoples on a 
tribal plane of development, extending down into modern times in the 
torrid zones. In temperate zones, and with the diminution of the kinds 
of warfare that resulted in the extinction of males and adoption of females, 
the monogamous marriage has steadily evolved and assumed both religious 
and political primacy. 

The central test of the family, sociologically speaking, is unquestion- 
ably its efficacy as an institution for the rearing of children into manhood 
and womanhood, and the transmission to them of the best portions of the 
social inheritance. Certainly all other functions of the family group are 
incidental to these. 

The large majority of Americans are products of what we may call 
normal family groups, characterized by : monogamous marriage ; residence 
in a separate home; prolonged education and nurture by parents; and the 
mother giving her time and working energy to "inworking" duties, the 
father to "outworking" duties. 

But there are variants. Even in the United States some American adults 
were born and reared in polygamous families, some have had no legal 
fathers, whilst not a few were reared by mothers who had to earn the 
family's bread as well as care for the children. Death, poverty, or dissipa- 
tion early left some children to shift for themselves. The divorce court 
deprived not a few of the cooperative support of father and mother. 
A large proportion of recent immigrants and of the freed negroes have 
passed through conditions that entailed extra-home work on the part of 
the mothers. 

American standards of family life have, from the earliest days of colonial 
settlement, been in process of evolution in this country. These can best 
be studied in those parts of our people where extremes of poverty or 
wealth are not found. They are more evident in rural neighborhoods, vil- 
lages, and small cities than in the largest cities. They are more clearly 
conceived, often, among -the native whites than amongst recent immigrant 
and colored peoples. 

America followed the Christian nations of Europe in upholding mo- 
nogamous marriage. The few attempts that have been made here to pro- 
mote polygamy in regular or irregular forms have been bitterly repudiated 
by the best sentiment of the people, and have finally been completely 
outlawed. 

The prolonged existence of frontier conditions, the rapid growth of 



FAMILY GROUPS 57 



cities, the constant presence of large numbers of mobile laborers, and the 
great extent, in many states, of industries, such as lumbering, railroad- 
building, and mining, that take men far away from their homes, have 
promoted much prostitution. But the more settled and law-abiding citi- 
zens have incessantly warred upon that evil and with increasing success 
in recent years. 

Modern tendencies ^ in the evolution of the family may well be studied 
in American society, where natural advantages, as well as the selective 
effects of migration, have enabled large groups of people in a measure to 
realize their ideals, and to substitute for traditions more or less purpose- 
ful control. The following are some of the marked tendencies in 
those levels of American society where conscious purposes have most 
effect : 

a. Parental oversight of children becomes steadily more direct and 
prolonged, especially with a view to giving these the best possible "start 
in life," not only of education but also of financial resources. 

b. The mother is increasingly enabled and desired to specialize her efforts 
in the care of the children and the conduct of elaborative work within the 
household group. 

c. Under the influence of these ideals, marriage tends to be postponed, 
and the family to be kept of moderate size. Parental influence stimulates 
the upbuilding of extensive systems of schools, and at least permits the 
evolution of commercialized agencies of recreation for children. Incessant 
warfare is maintained against those forms of community evil that most 
threaten the contamination of childhood. 

On the other hand, certain counter tendencies are manifest. It is ap- 
parently characteristic of American life that interest in relatives outside 
the central family group as created by marriage and descent should dimin- 
ish. Perhaps among no other peoples at the present time is that family 
unit which is kept intimate by acquaintance and frequent reunion so small 
as in America. 

DEGENERATIVE INFLUENCES * 

The fully developed family group must be held together largely by arti- 
ficial controls. Society, or rather certain elements in society, have always 

^ See excellent discussion in W. Goodsell, The Family as a Social and Educational 
Institution (Ch. 13, The Present Situation). 

* Read J. C. Colcord, Broken Homes; A. Myerson, The Nervous Housewife; and 
A, W, Calhoun, A Social History of the American Family. 



58 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

had to war against the degenerative influences affecting family life. To 
this end have been utilized very extensively the teachings of religion, the 
enactments of legislation, as well as many other means. 

Sexual looseness seems always to have been the worst foe of the unity 
of the family group. This in itself is often the product of more far- 
reaching social conditions, such as : conquest, by means of which large num- 
bers of persons, of widely different inheritance, are placed in positions, 
on the one hand of ascendancy and on the other of subjection; migration, 
and especially the migration of individual workers, has also been always 
one of the strongly contributing causes of loose morals ; war at all times, 
and also economic depression, have contributed to prolonged seasons of 
moral instability; and the widespread use of alcohol and other costly or 
poisonous stimulants has played a large part in family demoraliza- 
tion, as has also the evolution of commercialized entertainments and 
diversions. 

American family life has always been in a measure affected by these 
tendencies. All the circumstances associated with the settlement of 
America have fostered the migratory impulses of man, and this tendency- 
can hardly be said to have diminished in our modern industrial life, when 
we include under tliat the great industries especially of manufacturing, 
mining, building, and railway transportation. War and alcoholism have 
perhaps played a lesser part in American society than in corresponding 
European countries. On the other hand, commercialized recreation has 
been a decidedly adverse influence. Probably no other country in the 
world has gone further in permitting an easy dissolution of the 
marriage bonds through divorce than have many states in the American 
Union. 

Differential family limitation is a comparatively modern phenomenon, 
appearing thus far in only a few civilized countries in sufficient proportions 
to threaten the social well-being, over successive generations, of large 
numbers of people. The term is here applied to that restriction of family 
life which leads to excessive celibacy, undue postponement of the age of 
marriage, or over-small families among those who do marry. The porten- 
tous character of these social phenomena in France, New Zealand, the 
United States, and elsewhere is generally believed not to inhere so much 
in the total diminution of progeny resulting as in the fact that these ten- 
dencies seem to be characteristic in the main of the better educated and 
more successful, who presumably often represent superior strands or stock 
in the population. 



FAMILY GROUPS 59 



PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES '' 

Civilized societies the world over exhibit a large variety of progressive 
tendencies with reference to family groups. The following are the more 
conspicuous of these: 

1. Legal protection of childhood, primarily in the interests of the 
state, is everywhere extending. Children are protected from the cruelty 
of parents, from premature wage-earning, and are guaranteed minimum 
periods and kinds of schooling. There is everywhere a tendency to supple- 
ment general with vocational and physical education. Provision of public 
facilities for recreation, cure of disease, and the feeding of under-nour- 
ished children are becoming common and are approved by the best 
social economists. 

2. Vocational home-making education for girls and women, in antici- 
pation of their assumption of responsibilities of maintaining a household 
and rearing children, is everywhere in demand, and much concrete experi- 
mentation is going forward in the development of efifective ways and 
means. Many programs for such education (seldom as yet capable of full 
realization, however) are most ambitious and contemplate a far greater 
application of science to the maintenance of the home, the rearing of chil- 
dren, and the integration of the family life than has yet been practicable. 

3. Legal restrictions on the sale of alcohol and on commercialized 
prostitution are especially in evidence in America. Elaborate programs of 
reform in these matters look to the creation of a social environment in 
which the rearing of children and the maintenance of satisfactory family 
life can go on in uncorrupted fashion. 

4. American standards of living, as noted elsewhere, increasingly con- 
template parental custody and support of children up to an advanced period 
of education. To this must be added the increased tendency of elders to 
provide financial resources for young married persons in starting inde- 
pendent families in their turn. 

5. The ideals of eugenics are increasingly prevalent among better edu- 
cated classes in the formation of marital unions. The practice of postpon- 
ing marriage ; the custom of requiring demonstrated capacity of economic 
support of a family before marriage ; and the preference offered by Ameri- 
can life for the love marriage rather than the marriage de convenance have 

^ For some interesting suggestions see C. P. Oilman, The Home (Ch. 11-15, The 
Home, Children, and Progress) ; and M. H. Abel, Successful Family Life (Ch. 20, 
The Look Ahead). 



6o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

all provided many opportunities for the gradual and voluntary introduction 
of eugenic elements into family life. 

PROBLEMS OF FAMILY BETTERMENT SUMMARIZED ^ 

Every reader has had, of course, extensive experience with numberless 
problems of improving individual families. Nowhere can the "bad" 
family wholly hide its incompetence or its disgrace. Everywhere "Mrs. 
Grundy" (recent social interpreters say now that it is really "Mr. Grundy") 
acts as perennial critic of tendencies to depart from conventional, and 
probably in the main right standards of family organization, loyalty, co- 
operation, and orderly behavior. It is submitted that any American adult 
can readily follow the analysis given below and out of it interpret an ex- 
tensive range and variety of standards of the "good family membership" 
toward which large proportions of the more civic-minded Americans are 
striving. 

1. Formulate for one or more typical "case-groups" (or social class) the 
practicable goals or standards of "good family membership" toward which 
Americans are striving, giving separate consideration to such factors as : 

a. The stability of the marriage relation (divorce, separation, etc.). 

h. The durance or continuance of the parental relationship (self-support of 
children, withdrawal from household group — boys, girls, marriage of chil- 
dren, correspondence and intervisitation). 

c. The economic- contribution of the father. 

d. Same of the mother, giving separate consideration to extra-home wage- 
earning activities, and to home elaborative, custodial, and educative activities. 

e. The economic contribution of children — under fifteen, fifteen to eighteen, 
eighteen to marriage, after marriage, in old age of parents. 

/, Normal size of family and "spacing" of children. 

g. The respective educative functions of (i) mother, and (2) father for two 
sexes and at different ages, separately considered as to: (i) hygienic; (2) 
social, including manners, "heeding" community conformities, and junior citi- 
zenship; (3) cultural, including special "accomplishments"; and (4) voca- 
tional, including each sex, and differentiating ideals, selection, practical ex- 
perience, and training. 

h. The conformist attitudes of children toward parents, especially when in- 
stinctive and social pressures are centrifugal to the parental group. 

2. Describe for selected case groups typical abmodal or abnormal current 

° The interested reader will find in Ch. 13 of W. Goodsell, The Family as a Social 
and Educational Institution, an excellent discussion of present tendencies, and also 
a valuable bibliography. 



FAMILY GROUPS 6i 



tendencies or practices under each of the above heads, and the evils they seem 
to entail or threaten. 

Submit hypotheses as to how far in each case tendencies should be 
ascribed to: 

a. Hereditary traits in individuals (could proposed eugenic measures correct 
these?). 

b. Environmental products in individuals, due to (i) socially correctable 
and (2) relatively unescapable causes. 

c. Failures of school education in clearly defined respects. 

d. Environmental conditions affecting economic, cultural, social control, or 
other functionings of the family group. Distinguish for (i) conditions of 
congested population or prolonged depression (Chinese famine, war-time, re- 
cency of immigration, frontier settlement, racial restrictions — negroes, Japa- 
nese), rural residence; "slum" residence, suburban residence; (2) sur- 
roundings of persons of widely different cultural standards; (3) conflicts 
of religions or politics; (4) presence of a great variety of alluring 
diversions. 

3. Describe aims of social agencies designed to correct defects of family 
life: 

a. Agencies for uniform legislation as respects divorce, child-placing, mar- 
riage-licensing. 

b. Agencies in loco parentis, such as asylums (religious orders) (state), 
child-placing organizations, reform schools, etc 

c. Societies for: prevention of cruelty; relaxing restrictions on diffusion of 
birth-control knowledge; promotion of religious instruction or moral training; 
boys' club work, scouting, special education. 

d. Courts of domestic relations. 

4. Describe various conditions under which devotion of individuals to in- 
terests of other social relationships appears to react harmfully against ex- 
istence or goodness of the family : 

a. Interest in religious relations requiring celibacy. 

b. Pursuit of careers (military life, engineering, traveling salesman- 
ship, teaching, peripatetic workers) adverse to marriage or to a full-sized 
family. 

c. The military service of the soldier. 

d. The service of seafaring men. 

e. Interest in social or other clubs of voluntary membership, considering 
separately (i) men and (2) women. 

/. Devotion to political parties. 

g. Excessive interest in general fellowship or special sociability groups. 

h. Pursuit of careers of leadership or distinction. 

i. Report examples of literature dealing with these situations. 



62 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

5. Show how excessive absorption in the family relation operates harmfully 
on other social relationships. 

a. Effects of intermarriage of those of unlike faiths. 

b. Effects of a promising "career" on (i) men, (2) women. 

c. Effects of family in so intensifying economic preoccupations as to entail 
neglect of parties, clubs, culture, recreations. 

6. Discuss ideals, expectations, and demonstrated results of these varieties 
of school education on family life : 

a. Day nurseries for children from birth to four. 

b. Kindergartens, for economically submerged or unadjusted. 

c. Kindergartens, for "homes of wealth." 

d. Kindergartens, for normal rural children. 

e. Kindergartens, for normal suburban children. 
/. "School playgrounds." 

g, "Long school day" — Gary. 

h. Household arts, poor girls, twelve to fifteen. 

i. Vocational home economics, high school, 

y. Deans of girls, large high schools. 

k. Social sciences — topic "the family" in colleges. 

I. Instruction in "social (sex) hygiene." 

m. Parents' and teachers' clubs. 

n. Home economics extension instruction — rural areas, urban areas. 

0. The visiting teacher. 
p. Other agencies. 

PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE*^ 

1. Wage-earning employment of women has, in America, increasingly 
resulted from the specialization of productive processes away from the 
home, the relative increase of manufacture and commerce in comparison 
with agriculture, and the rapid growth of urban communities. The conse- 
quences of the social habits and conditions thus engendered to family life 
are various. It is alleged that women who have spent some years in wage- 
earning employments and under conditions of substantial economic inde- 
pendence are loath to undertake the responsibilities of home-making with 
its seeming economic dependence. There is no satisfactory evidence as yet 
that among industrial classes of America marriage has proportionately de- 
clined in comparison with similar classes in other times and places. From 
choice or lack of opportunity a certain proportion of wage-earning women 
remain permanently celibate. Under normal conditions this proportion 

'Read Edith Abbott, Women in Industry (Ch. 12, The Problem of Women's 
Wages) ; also W. Goodsell, The Family (Ch. 14, Current Theories of Reform). 



FAMILY GROUPS 63 



does not seem larger here and now than elsewhere or formerly. Again, 
it is alleged that women habituated to earnings of their own are less toler- 
ant of unhappy matrimonial conditions than are women who have never 
been economically independent. Here again it is not certain that the 
result is altogether an evil, even from the standpoint of children that may 
be involved. 

Extremists make proposals looking to the continued economic employ- 
ment of women after marriage. Such employment is obviously at war 
with what has above been called the American standard of family life, 
except in so far as the women involved are capable of an extraordinary 
amount of productive service, such as is sometimes the case with singers, 
actresses, and writers. In all other cases it is manifest that the responsi- 
bilities for the proper rearing of children are incompatible with the per- 
formance of the duties of a full-time wage-earning vocation. 

2. The physical impairment of women for the assumption of full 
responsibilities for home-making and the rearing of families is frequently 
alleged to be one of the outcomes of the strains of modern education, in- 
door employment, and social stimulation. Some critics find incapacity for 
work and the bearing of children to be characteristic of the better edu- 
cated and well-to-do classes of America. The facts here seem obscure. 
There can, however, be little doubt that the future is destined to witness, 
as a part of the advancing social economy of this and other countries, 
an earnest promotion of the better physical development and education of 
girls and young women, no less than of boys and young men. Researches 
now in progress will undoubtedly indicate to what extent and with what 
possible social consequences the alleged physical decadence of American 
womanhood is a reality. 

3. Proposals for eugenic action ^ on the part of the state now appear 
with increasing frequency. Many of the biological factors involved are 
well understood. As noted above, people of most intelligence increas- 
ingly form unions with conscious reference to eugenic possibilities 
involved. 

Whether the state is justified in entering upon comprehensive policies, 
either denying marriage to those of poor stock or encouraging and promot- 
ing the unions of the most fit, is a question to which no final answer is yet 
obtainable. However, the trend of scientific discussion in recent years is 
in this direction. In some instances it would appear that legislation simply 
waits upon demonstration of more certain means of separating the 

^Holmes, Trend of the Race (Ch. 7, The Causes of the Decline of the Birth 
Rate). 



64 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

wheat from the chaff and of insuring successful execution of such 
legislation. 

4. Should the state subsidize the rearing of children? 

Under simple social conditions children early became "assistant" pro- 
ducers, often at least to the extent of their own cost. Boys on small farms 
and girls in farm homes can still readily be given enough work to do (with- 
out physical or educational injury, if carefully managed) to "pay for their 
keep." In small stores, tailor shops, and repair shops operated by for- 
eigners the same is often true. 

But under modern conditions on large farms and in most urban homes, 
and especially where good standards of schooling prevail, children are 
a direct economic liability until late adolescence. Save for the well-to-do, 
a numerous family may spell poverty, even distress. The effects of this 
are delayed marriage, lessened size of families, perhaps excessive labor on 
the part of parents. 

Proposals are frequently made that under present conditions it would 
be advantageous to society that all collectively should bear the burden of 
rearing to effective maturity those who are to be the citizens of the state. 
' • certain states the ideal finds partial application now in system of pen- 
sions for widows. 

Any extensive development of such a scheme would and should inevitably 
lead to demands for eugenic policies. If the state is to help rear children, 
a majority of citizens would presently insist that men and women probably 
unfit to give good heredity or otherwise to do their part should be denied 
the privilege of parenthood. 

The state endowment of children is frequently proposed in France, 
and sometimes elsewhere, as a means of compensating families, especially 
those living in towns and by work in which little or no help can be ex- 
pected from the children. The alarmingly diminishing birth rate of France 
has frequently given rise to proposals that the state should aid all those 
families rearing more than a specified minimum of children. From time 
to time proposals are submitted to legislative bodies looking to the imposi- 
tion of special taxes on celibates and childless families. 

5. Can home-making education ^ be made truly vocational either within 
the ordinary school period or at any other time prior to the undertaking 
of family responsibilities? The teaching of home economics has become 
very general indeed in the public high schools of the United States dur- 

" See D. Snedden, Vocational Education (Ch, 8, Vocational Home-Making Edu- 
cation). 



FAMILY GROUPS 65 



ing the last twenty years. Few careful students are willing to admit, how- 
ever, that, as now taught, such home economics instruction is likely to 
prove more than superficially vocational for persons of average ability or 
interest. The large majority of American girls will, under present condi- 
tions, spend several years in wage-earning vocations before undertaking 
home-making responsibilities. It is inevitable, therefore, that home-making 
interests can not be keen in the majority of adolescent girls. No doubt 
increasing provision will be made for such vocational education, not in 
youth, but just before or just after marriage. The great success of ex- 
tension home economics education among farmers' wives and to some ex- 
tent among recent immigrants augurs well for education of the kind here 
proposed. 

PROBLEMS FOR EDUCATION 

1. The purpose of providing, through special schools or special depart- 
ments in general schools, definite training for the vocation of home-makei 
as practised by the wife and mother is now fully accepted in American 
education. Little, however, is yet confidently known regarding specific 
objectives, -relative values, means, and methods of such education. 

But it is still a problem as to whether another quite distinct purpose 
should not be defined and developed — that of education in appreciation, 
ideals, and insight of home and family life. This would be general 
(social) rather than vocational education. It should work with concrete 
means — home projects, visits, laboratory exercises — for illustrative pur- 
poses chiefly. Such objectives have been foreshadowed by some home 
economics and household arts texts and courses already developed, but 
no sustained and consistent purpose yet appears in the literature of the 
general subject. 

2. Can schools successfully add to their present partially successful 
program of instruction in sex hygiene, courses of instruction, training, 
or idealization in sex morality ? The obstacles are many ; but the need 
seems great. 

3. The field of social education is constantly widening, and now includes 
tentative approaches to many objectives of developmental education — 
speech, physical play, morals and manners, hygienic practices, art appre- 
ciation, community civics, thrift, vocational guidance, vocational apprecia- 
tions, and the like — for which the household formerly had full, and 
even yet must have large, responsibilities. 



66 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

It is folly to say that the school has no responsibilities here. But do 
educators yet appreciate that their responsibilities are essentially residual 
or compensatory — that is, to correct defects or deficiencies in the home- 
given education? Properly conceived, then, such school education can 
be effective only if it is most carefully coordinated with home education — 
something that curriculum and course makers generally overlook except 
as respects speech. 

4. Eugenics may yet bring it about that people will be born into the 
world more nearly equal in endowment than now. Can education be now 
employed as a means of furthering such eugenic policies ? 

Is it probable that educational policy will take the form of giving to 
the strong relatively less of help than is given to the weak, thus tending 
artificially to equalize their powers in adult life? 

Will not society at large, as well as nearly all social groups, De in 
greater, rather than less, need, in the future of the fullest services of their 
strong members — and this because of the increasing size and complexity 
of groups, the greater intricacy of their processes, and the larger measure 
of their responsibilities? 

The principle of noblesse oblige seems to have been extensively applied 
in the better manifestations of feudalism from the fifth to the fourteenth 
centuries. To a certain extent it appeared in modern corporate industry 
during the years 1914-20. Does it seem probable that under more ade- 
quate education it would be capable of extensive development wherever 
strong and weak must cooperate? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Davenport, C. B. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (Ch. 6-7, Family 
Inheritance). 

Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. H. Ethics (Ch. 26, The Family). 

Ellis, H. The Task of Social Hygiene (Ch. 5, The Significance of a 
Falling Birth Rate). 

Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 4-8, The 
Family: Functions, Origins, Forms, Problems). 

GiDDiNGs, F. Principles (Ch. 3, Bk. Ill, Ethnogenic Association). 

Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race (Ch. 3, Inheritance of Mental 
Defects and Diseases). 

Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race (Ch. 10, Sexual Selection, As- 
sertive Mating, and the Differential Marriage Rate). 

Kelsey, C. L. The Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 8, Sex Diflferences). 



FAMILY GROUPS 67 



LiCHTENBERGER, J. B, The Problem of Divorce. 
Richmond, Mary E. Social Diagnosis (Ch. 7, The Family Group). 
Wells, H. G. Social Forces in England and America (pp. 242-55 (Di- 
vorce) and 268-75 (The Endowment of Motherhood). 



CHAPTER VI 
NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

WHAT kinds of "local communities" have you lived in ? What was the use 
of one of these communities to you when you were from five to ten 
years old? Ten to eighteen ? Eighteen to thirty ? Of what use to a neighbor- 
hood community were you when you were from five to ten years old ? Ten to 
eighteen? Eighteen to thirty? 

2. Develop some of the ideas suggested to you by these phrases : "a back- 
ward community"; "fine community spirit"; "a progressive, self-centered com- 
munity"; "absence of facilities for community recreation"; "a community 
center." 

3. What do you think is an ideal size, location, and organization of a 
"neighborhood community"? Fifty or five thousand families? All ages and 
both sexes, or one sex and all of nearly the same age? Of several races or 
only one? Prosperous and poor, or of one economic condition only? Many 
vocations or one only ? On the plains or in the mountains ? In the suburbs, 
a few dozen miles from, or more than a hundred miles from, a large city? 

4. Under what circumstances does "community spirit" seem to fade out in 
certain neighborhoods, such as: a crowded city block; a part of a "one indus- 
try" factory city; a newly settled farming region; a rural town (Gopher 
Prairie) ? 

5. Many sociologists hold that "next to the family, the village community 
has been the most important social group in the evolution of civilized society." 
What are the sociologically vital features of village life to-day in India, 
Russia, central Europe ? In many parts of Europe farmers do not live on their 
land, but in the village center, where live also blacksmiths, teachers, the priest, 
the druggist, and several small merchants. Why may communities like these 
have been excellent nurseries of some of the qualities of civilized folks? In 
America it is sometimes said: "God made the country, man made the city, and 
Satan made the little country town." Explain. 

6. Are not these also "communities" in the historic sense of the term: 
cities; provinces; states; nations; "communities of nations"? 

7. For the discharge of what important social functions do the people of 
the modern nation constitute a real community? A province or American 

68 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 69 

state? A municipality? (For convenience apply the term "municipality" to 
all regionally small areas incorporated, or otherwise empowered, to discharge 
some functions of self-government — cities, towns, boroughs, populous school 
districts, etc.) Do all these groupings center about functions of government? 
What are the tests of sovereignty in them? Where does sovereignty reside 
in America? Where in the German Empire — prior to 1914? In the Union of 
Great Britain and Ireland — prior to 1921 ? 

8. Do "community functions" include political functions? What are non- 
political community functions? 

Is there a "community" of interest between partners? Husband and wife? 
Stockholders in a corporation? Members of a church? Neighbors? Buyer 
and seller? Employer and employee? Three farmers living within a half- 
mile of each other? The children of a family? 

9. Ten families have houses very close together. Show how they might 
have "community needs" and "community interests," and discharge "corhmunity 
functions" — as to fire protection and drainage ; but none in religion, sociability, 
or education. They are not conscious of any community cooperation in defense 
against enemies, the administration of justice, or exchange of commodities; 
but such cooperations exist, nevertheless. Show how and why these families 
may be oblivious to such cooperations. 

Sixty-fouT farmers' families, raising wheat as a business, live each on 
one hundred and sixty acres of land, their farms extending over an area four 
miles square. They have immediate community interests in line fences and 
adjacent roads. Representatives in the county seat manage public roads 
and schools and administer justice. Representatives in the state legislature 
provide for general legislation, state roads, etc. Representatives in Congress 
provide for mail carriage, general defense, railway rates, food inspection, 
expert advice in agriculture. Wheat is marketed through distant central 
agencies. Half of needed commodities are bought at a distance; and 95 per 
cent, are produced at a distance. A central village gives facilities for worship, 
commercially supported diversions, and library. A city daily paper is read. 
The men interchange semi-business consultations, the women and children 
intervisit sparingly. 

It is felt that there is little "community life." What things are prob- 
ably missing? What appear to be present obstacles to abundant "socia- 
bility" cooperation? Religious cooperation locally? Economic cooperation? 
Political cooperation? Cultural cooperation? Cooperation toward local 
security ? 

Suppose the national government attends very well to the distribution of 
mails — what is the effect on collective consciousness as to this function among 
these sixty-four families? Suppose the wheat product is every year sold 
easily and for a good price, what are the effects on local cooperation ? Would 
adversity be a jewel? What are the socializing effects of commercialized 



70 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

movies ? Suppose a state "maternity care" service were developed to the 
point of great and automatic efficiency — what would be its probable effects 
on local cooperations ? Are social intercourse, conscious cooperation, col- 
lective planning, the festival, to be regarded as means or as ends? 

What have been the effects of accessible drinking-places, dancing-greens, 
house-raisings, sheep-shearings, harvest festivals, plowing contests, local fairs, 
lyceum gatherings, dances, etc., in the cooperative discharge of more basic 
or life preservative functions in former times? Why have these so atrophied 
among these farmers? 

10. Current sociological discussion often uses the word "community" mis- 
leadingly. For corrective interpretations, trace varieties of "community of 
interest" between : 

a. Husband and wife. 

b. Parent and children. 

c. Farmer and hired man. 

d. Neighboring farmers producing same commodities. 

e. Farmer and selling merchant in town. 

/. Several neighbors, members of same church. 

g. Frontier settlers wanting well built road and prevention of horse-stealing. 

h. More or less competing neighbors needing good school. 

i. Cattle-grower and Chicago meat-packer. 

/. Minnesota wheat-grower and McCormick reaper factory. 

k. Frontier prairie farmer and New York bank contemplating financing a 
proposed tapping railway. 

i. A farmer and the United States Department of Agriculture studying a 
fruit pest. 

11. The "community" cooperations or interrelationships of men may involve 
much or little of "personal" or "fellowship" contacts, according to the 
degree to which they can be mechanized or organized. Trace the degrees 
of fellowship or close friendship now involved in discharging these 
functions : 

a,. Preserving national security through a navy. 

b. The marriage relation. 

c. Exchange of Minne,sota wheat and Massachusetts cotton. 

d. The care of the sick in a large city hospital. 

e. The rearing of children in the monogamous family. 
/. The rearing of children in an orphanage. 

g. Medical relationship between town physician and remote rural patient. 
h. Host and "guest" in a large hotel. 
i. Hostess and guest in a boarding-house, 
y. Entertainers and entertained in amateur theatricals. 
k. Entertained and entertainers in usual "movie" performance. 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 71 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITIES ANALYZED 

Who is my neighbor? For practical sociology he is, on the one hand, 
some one living not far away, and whose face and affairs are somewhat 
familiar to you; and, on the other, some one not closely bound to you by 
ties of blood or economic partnership. Under ordinary circumstances, the 
members of a neighborhood, according to sex, age, and some other condi- 
tions, come together for social companionship, worship, and the discharge 
of some political functions. They are often served in common by traders, 
mail-carriers, traveling entertainers, and the like. 

Primitive human beings lived usually in wandering packs, clans, or 
hordes. There was much cooperation in defense, hunting, care of domestic 
animals, maintenance of order, conservation of culture, and rearing of 
children; hence each group was a "community" in the true sense of the 
term, even though it frequently shifted its camping place. Communities 
of this kind are still found in arctic regions, in tropical valleys, and on 
deserts. Mobile gypsy communities are vestigial survivals in England and 
the United States. Under tribal conditions it has always been assumed 
that the members of these small communities are related by blood — as is 
still true, indeed, in many Chinese village communities. 

When tillage of the soil was substituted for the pastoral life, or, perhaps 
more accurately, wherever tillage of the soil became the chief means of 
subsistence, — on the rich plains, irrigated valleys, and protected islands 
of the north temperate zone especially, — the agricultural village became 
the real community. It was natural that families should live close together, 
and that the women (and the men when they were not fighting or hunting 
or mining) workers should go out, even from one to three miles, to till 
the soil and harvest the crops. Russia, India, China, and many other parts 
of the world still show numberless examples of this form of social organi- 
zation. 

The social evolution of man has probably taken place chiefly in the 
village community — that is, in a compact neighborhood of from half a 
dozen to some scores of family groups. These have been held together, 
wherever we find them in the anthropological records of man, partly by 
necessities of cooperative defense, partly by the demands of the hunting, 
pastoral, fishing, or agricultural life, and probably by the sheer satisfactions 
of companionship and joint worship.^ 

Until very recently — that is, until transportation and power-driven manu- 

^ For a vivid presentation see: Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Ch. 4, Mutual Aid Among 
Barbarians); and Tufts, Our Democracy (Ch. 3. The Clan and Its Customs). 



^2 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

facture had extensively developed — in all parts of the world a very large 
part of all social functions outside the family were discharged by the 
village community acting in some collective way. It fought against in- 
vading enemies. It administered internal justice and enforced moral cus- 
toms. Within it evolved the various forms of division of labor, education, 
worship, and relief that were too complex for the family group. Social 
control and direction within the neighborhood community had, of course, 
to be effected through chosen personages — sometimes chiefs, sometimes 
priests, sometimes elders or heads of families, and sometimes just the 
naturally strong men or women. When conquerors overcame scattered 
villages, they often left the local agencies of government intact, as is 
largely the case in Russia and India to-day. 

The village community was therefore for long ages, and still is to 
some extent, a "sociological microcosm." ^ It was a little world in which 
nearly all social functions were exercised by and for its few score of in- 
habitants. It built walls and trained its young men for its defense against 
robbers and other enemies. It disciplined its unruly ones and enforced 
justice. It built roads, ditches, and a church. It often maintained com- 
munity schools, market places, and warehouses for the storage of tools or 
seed. 

The early settlers in New England spontaneously redeveloped or adopted 
the true village community, since the wiser members speedily discovered 
that they must not only do cooperatively all the things that villages had 
always been doing in England, but they must also wage war against In- 
dians and French, and make laws to regulate their own internal affairs, 
functions that in the mother country had already become considerably 
"centralized." 

The medieval cities of Italy and of the Hanseatic League were villages 
that had specialized in trade and handicraft industry, and had become 
so gigantic that they could wage offensive war at a distance, build wonder- 
ful town halls, and fortify themselves with walls that dukes could not 
breach. , 

The primary characteristic of fully developed historic village com- 
munities was social self-suMciency. They imported little, whether of 
economic goods, amusements, culture, or means of justice. They traded 
among themselves, often by means of barter, and brought from abroad 
or sent abroad only a few luxuries or specialized products. Most of their 
officials were unpaid — or rather were paid in "honor" for their special 
work. Conventions, customs, and taboos played a larger part than laws, 

^ See H. Maines, Early Lazv and Customs (Ch. 7). 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 73 

courts, and jails in maintaining order. People all knew one another and 
found one another good (or bad) company. "Community" songs, dances, 
and festivals necessarily evolved and persisted largely because there was 
nothing else. Mother Grundy kept close watch over all comings and 
goings. Probably for long ages fear — of predatory bands, of famine, 
and of flood — was the strongest of all cohesive forces. 

The great conquests that laid the foundations of ancient civilizations 
in the valleys of the Nile, Euphrates, Ganges, Hoang-Ho, and perhaps in 
Palestine, western Europe, Mexico, and the Mediterranean islands and 
peninsulas, probably did not always or generally disrupt the village life 
of the conquered. It has hardly done so in Russia, India, or Egypt to this 
day. The conquerors found it much more profitable to let the tillers of 
the soil and the village craftsmen pursue the even tenor of their local ways, 
provided they paid some taxes or tribute and gave strong men to work on 
the roads, navigate ships, build fortifications and palaces, and serve in the 
armies. In return, the conquerors probably drove away predatory bands 
and defended the villages from invasion. As long as the villages "had no 
history" they were happy. 

The decline of the neighborhood community is a consequence of 
economic and political evolution. Civilization has subtracted far more 
from the -neighborhood community than it has added to it. The first 
function to be lost was that of defense against external foes. More than 
ten thousand years ago this began to be taken over by that larger centralized 
community which we call nation, state, or empire. Then came transporta- 
tion, commerce, and trade, which progressively diminished the economic 
self-sufficiency of the neighborhood. The members found it better to 
import from a distance some of the things they needed, and, in exchange, 
to send out certain of their own products. A score of causes brought about 
centralization of law-making powers and the consequent oversight of 
central courts of justice and policing. In recent years many communities 
depend upon "commercialized" entertainments brought from a distance, 
and local powers of collectively providing for diversions suffer atrophy.^ 

The growth of cities seems in part to have caused the decline of neigh- 
borhood communities, or rather of "community functions." The cities 
themselves are communities, indeed, and, in modern times, of very vital 
type; but in them true neighborhoods of community spirit have become 
almost vestigial. Various social functions — trade, manufacture, exchange 
of ideas and publication, governmental administration, higher education 

^ These conditions are well analyzed in N. L. Sims, The Rural Community (Ch. 4, 
The Disintegration of the Village Community). 



74 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

— seem naturally to center in cities; whilst certain others — entertainment, 
worship, select companionship — develop therein forms more acceptable to 
exacting tastes.* 

Cities thus not only replace neighborhood functions by others probably 
more efficient in their immediate areas, but they also exert strong modify- 
ing influences on neighborhoods at a distance. These, instead of evolving 
or even maintaining their historic functions, tend increasingly to depend 
upon central governments, central trading establishments, entertainments 
distributed from central sources, and the like. Each neighborhood, like 
each municipality, specializes its productive activities and uses central 
agencies to distribute its products. It steadily widens its utilizing interests, 
but, in supplying these from the world at large, cities are again resorted to 
as central distributing agencies. 

The ultimate causes of the decline of the neighborhood community as a 
vital social organism are, therefore, much the same as those that have given 
us modern society, viz. : the widening of areas of common defense, adminis- 
tration of justice, and other functions of government; the specialization of 
production, including transport and trade; the evolution of tolerated party 
cleavages ; and the diffusion of knowledge.^ 

Needs of common defense against hostile beasts and men no doubt oper- 
ated most powerfully in evoking and sustaining the cooperations of the 
ancient village group. Examples of this still lie very near America in 
the history of the settlement of our own frontiers. They are still more 
abundant in the recent history of savage and barbarous life in all primitive 
regions. 

From similar sources also may be derived numberless examples of the 
cooperations produced when the neighborhood is forced to be almost com- 
pletely self-sufficient in meeting needs for food, shelter, and other economic 
goods. The interdependencies, intercourse, and exchanges thus developed 
operate like the forces that pull individualistic atoms into complex self- 
sustaining molecules. The qualities of men and Women that beget "com- 
munity solidarity" are, .of course, generated and hardened in these endless 
enforced cooperations. A modern man may be in but in no self-conscious 
way of a modern neighborhood, but such independence is not practicable 
in a self-sufficing small community of the historic type. He who could 
not consciously "fit in" was killed, or exiled, often to destruction. 

Civilized, and especially democratic, societies tolerate "party" divisions 

* Prince Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Ch. 5 and 6, Mutual Aid in the Medieval City). 
"See suggestive account in P. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid (Ch. 7, The Resistance of 
the Village Community to Abolition by the State). 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 75 

over large areas — parties in politics, in religion, in economic interest. 
These make for progress in "large group" societies, but when their lines 
cut across neighborhoods, they seriously impair, if they do not destroy, 
neighborhood co5perations. These divisions take their most acute forms 
where representatives of very dissimilar races are settled in the same neigh- 
borhood. We are familiar also with the rifts produced in local churches, 
partnerships, sociability groups, and even families, by party or sectarian 
cleavages that are sometimes nation-wide, or even international, in scope. 
Small local communities that are forced to be self-sufficing have rarely 
tolerated such cleavages due to external causes. Such toleration, now 
found everywhere, is one symptom of the decline of the neighborhood com- 
munity. 

The modern village community is, therefore, in many respects a 
defunctionalised social group.*' A large part of the functions, the dis- 
charge of which gave purpose to the original village group and kept it 
wholesome, have been specialized away. Sometimes, like the vermiform 
appendix, the village tends to become degenerate and a source of evil infec- 
tion to the more vital social groups. Certainly it often needs a better de- 
velopment of its remaining proper functions in order to prevent further 
degeneration. 

Recenj: transformations of village community life are evident in all west- 
ern nations, but especially in regions that have been deeply affected by 
the "mechanical revolution" of the last two centuries. Consider the old 
villages in England. In some cases they have become centers of specialized 
manufacture, mining, or railroading. As quickly grown cities they have 
lost in simplicity, fellowship, and conscious community unity. One or 
a few products are poured out to markets, and foodstuffs, wares, and 
means of amusement flow in from all quarters of the world. The county 
borough. Poor Law Union, or nation has more and more taken over the 
functions of government — education, road-making, administration of jus- 
tice, inspection of wares, and the like. 

But in most cases the village has not become a city. In that case it has, 
however, commonly become only a small fragment of a nation. Ii is so- 
cially autonomous as respects very few functions. Its food is imported. 
None of its shoes, bricks, tinware, hats, doors, books, or carriages are 
made locally. It imports its pianos, its phonograph records, its moving- 
picture films. Its local courts merely initiate trials-, sending the cases on 
to urban or other central courts for final adjudication. The local schools, 

" But see H. P. Douglas, The Little Town, and C. J. Galpin, Rural Life, for antici- 
pations as to the future. 



76 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

churches, and police are virtually governed by central authorities. The 
paving of streets, building of bridges, and condemnation of land for public 
improvements depend less upon local than upon central initiative. 

More serious still, the standards of intellectual and esthetic culture, 
as well as of recreation and fellowship, held by the "smart" or "up-to-date" 
of the village are metropolitan or "near-metropolitan." Spontaneous local 
effort adapted to local resources in music, drama, festival, or fair is per- 
sistently snubbed by the knowing ones who have sojourned in urban centers 
where specialization in all these matters is made commercially practicable 
by densities of population. Not only have specialization of production, 
centralization of government, and concentration of cultural facilities de- 
nuded the village: the "urbanization" of the "standards" — of the "edu- 
cated" appreciations of the ablest or "smartest" — of all forms of cultural 
and recreational life have made the village self-conscious and ashamed of 
its amateur and unspecialized efforts to preserve or revive those social 
functions that must be localized if they are to be of any avail whatever. 

The final blow to the village community comes when migration toward 
urban centers or new lands drains steadily away the strong, bold, enter- 
prising spirits just at the time — usually from twenty to thirty years of age 
— when their initiative and cooperativeness could be of maximum service 
in local affairs. Small wonder, in view of the social evolution of the west- 
ern world for the last two centuries, that countless old village communities 
have sunk into the apathy and unkemptness that characterize a man or 
woman whom numerous rebuffs of fate and failures of fortune have com- 
pletely discouraged. 

The American small town, west of the Atlantic coast, has had a some- 
what different history. It has been a specialized product of the settled 
countryside, rather than the center of evolution of the countryside. Secure 
against war and against predatory bands, the settlers of western America 
dispersed themselves over the land, each to his quarter section on which 
he could live in close proximity to his live stock, which is the first indis- 
pensable source of a livelihood to the land-claiming pioneer. Then fol- 
lowed the upbuilding, at some convenient cross-roads, spring, or river 
landing place, of a store for general merchandise, a blacksmith's shop, 
and a livery stable. The development of the farms presently brought to 
this hamlet a doctor, a minister, a druggist, and possibly a small hotel. 
Competing stores were added, and presently a railway station appeared. 

Gradually the business of this "town," offering greater lures than farm- 
ing, attracted some strong men who eventually became powerful mer- 
chants, bankers, lawyers, insurance agents, commission merchants, and 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS yj 

contractors. A few "community functions" had to be undertaken col- 
lectively — the paving of streets, provision of light, protection against fire, 
and the building of a school and churches. But socially this town was 
often simply an outpost of the city. Its most capable men and women 
thought in city terms and aspired toward the metropolis. Of commercial- 
ized agencies of culture — newspapers, magazines, drama, moving pictures, 
concerts, lectures, fairs, circuses, museums — the small town gets only 
crumbs or leavings. It has no substantial responsibilities in administering 
justice, leading in politics, establishing fashions, or determining its own 
economic development. It is not autonomous, but is an economic, po- 
litical, and cultural "means" to the larger society, "the great society" 
of municipality or nation.'^ 

The American rural neighborhood is largely unlike any other social 
grouping in the world.^ The very security in which the larger parts of 
America were settled favored the dispersal of plantations or homestead 
farms. Opportunities to satisfy hunger for land ownership, such as had 
never before come to ordinary folk, reconciled the woman to the unnatural 
condition of living half a mile or more from the nearest neighbors. In 
spite of bad roads, cold drives, and rude gathering places, the pioneers did 
develop some pathetic forms of social assembly — motivated perhaps by 
religious zeal, the cultural appeal of singing school or lyceum, or the call 
of the Grange. 

But most of the conditions were adverse to the conservation or revival 
of "community" functions. Even cooperative building of roads failed 
in time — it was too inefficient. Farm products flowed to town, and the 
world's products were bought at the town's stores. Sons and daughters 
went to town for dances, drama, convivial eating and drinking. Keen, 
well dressed men came from town to sell books, insurance, implements, 
to buy crops, or to lecture on up-to-date farming. Town lawyers, bankers, 
and real-estate men nearly always led in political thinking and acting, 
watchful, of course, of the slow-moving but often determined "farmer 
vote." 

Good crops, then good roads, and finally automobiles are in some of 
the most prosperous parts of the west creating a type of "community life" 
somewhat resembling that of the "county" families of old England, or 
that of the slave-owning aristocrats in the South before the war. Leisure 
and means are available to intervisit, to have house parties, to bring to the 

' For a popular interpretation in fiction see S. Lewis's novel entitled Main Street. 
* Read W. H. Wilson, The Evolution of a Country Community, and Hamlin Gar- 
land, Son of the Middle Border. 



78 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

rural home some of the cultural things in music and reading and dress of 
the cities.® 



COMMUNITY FUNCTIONS SUMMARIZED 

1. Recent literature of social economy frequently employs such words 
as "community center," "community welfare," "rural community," "com- 
munity spirit," etc. But the word "community" seems to have small place 
in current sociological literature. It occurs sometimes as synonymous with 
"neighborhood," sometimes as almost synonymous with "society." Web- 
ster defines it, first, as "a body of people having common organization or 
interests, living in the same place, under the same laws and regulations" 
{e.g., community of monks) ; second, as society at large, a commonwealth 
or state, a body politic, the public, etc. 

The heterogeneity of the modern city and the growth of specialized in- 
terests unintegrated within a given "neighborhood" has led to various at- 
tempts to revive or provide means of creating "community" feeling, "com- 
munity" action, etc. 

2. Etymologically the word "community" implies common interests. 
Common interests of peoples diversify, grow more intense, and spread 
to larger groups with social evolution, and take on new specialized descrip- 
tive names. Perhaps this explains the virtual disappearance of the term 
"community" except in the terminology of rural sociology. But it is con- 
tended by some that "community" life in rural America suffers serious 
decline. What does this mean as to decline of various social interests, of 
a codperative nature? Analysis of various social functions may help here. 

3. The kinds of communal relationships in which the normal individual 
regularly functions may be classified as : 

a. Family, giving such social relationships as filial, fraternal, parental, 
conjugal; and these leading to such functions as child nurture, defense, 
cooperation in production, sociability, joint worship, education, and in fact 
all social functions in their primitive aspects. 

h. Vocational (or economic production), giving such relationships as 
those of employer-employee, partnership, co-employees, co-investors, direc- 
tion, subordination, trading, exchanging, investing, etc. (Under this head 
may profitably be included relationships of defense— army, voluntary police 
— and school education, such as teacher and learners, school loyalties, etc.) 

c. Religious, giving relationships of fellow worshipers, leadership, 
propaganda, sacerdotalism, devotion to deities, propitiation, etc. 

° Read Meredith Nicholson, Valley of Democracy. 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 79 

d. Political (inclusive as tribal, civic, or of the state), giving municipal 
(including manorial or tow^nal), provincial (American state), national, and 
international relationships (all usually on a legalistic basis). 

e. Party (in the party or sect sense), giving party associates, organiza- 
tions, cooperation in propaganda, etc. 

/. Sociability (fellowship, conviviality, associate friendliness, often called 
social in special sense), as found in festivals, games, and collective sump- 
tuary or other friendly intimacies. 

g. Cultural, as involving common satisfaction of interests primarily in- 
tellectual and esthetic, including utilization and avocational or amateur pro- 
ductive activities. 

h. (Communal: Used by the Jews to include collective efforts in meet- 
ing obligations of a quasi-political or religious nature, made necessary by 
certain partial isolations in their racial life amidst other peoples.) 

4. Under primitive or elemental social conditions a localized "habitat" 
or neighborhood group, if not too large, might exercise all or nearly all 
of the foregoing functions within the limits of the group itself. Imagine 
twenty families resident in a valley, isolated from the outside world. In 
many functions the group would act more or less as a unit, especially 
under pressure of common need ; whilst in some the members would act 
through only a few groups. Acquaintanceship of all members would be 
intimate, mutual understanding would be well developed, like-mindedness 
as great as diversities of sex and ages would permit. Many or most of the 
contacts would be personal, face-to-face, vocal, associative. Laws would 
play a small part, customs and conventions a large part. Informal co- 
operations would be many. Much cooperation in production, sociability, 
etc., would be found without price or fee. So many interests affect the 
same individuals that community is a real, intense, pervasive fact, but based 
almost wholly on "small group" social psychology. 

5. Contrast with this the membership of a highly developed suburban 
town or city (Brookline, Massachusetts, may be taken as extreme type). 
By all ordinary standards of social values, conditions here are far su- 
perior to those in the primitive village. Needed collective local activities 
(cooperative provision of policing, water, street paving, cleaning, school- 
ing) are effected through political machinery that ordinarily brings the 
dwellers in this geographical area very slightly into face-to-face relation- 
ships. Nominations and elections take place in effect by written communi- 
cations and record. Very few men of any part or the whole of the town 
are in vocational cooperation, and when this happens in the case of fellow 
stockholders or fellow street-car workers, personal contacts are seldom 



8o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

made. The sociability affiliations of the townsmen may be quite independ- 
ent of each other, quite independent of residence juxtapositions, and fre- 
quently of town membership. 

Nevertheless the social life of each individual here is usually very com- 
plete, and probably very effective, in respect to cooperation and other asso- 
ciation. Two families in adjacent houses may not have a speaking acquain- 
tance, yet the members of each be fully socialized and socially effective 
in all that pertains to the forms of social relationship analyzed above. 
That is : 

a. The usual family functions of nurture, education, protection, and a 
good "start" in life for children will be well executed. 

b. The woman in the home, the man at work, and the children at school 
will be doing their respective forms of productive work well, but not neces- 
sarily in cooperation with one another at all. 

c. All members of each family may attend church, but not at the same 
time, perhaps not the same churches. Probably the two families will not 
attend the same church. 

d. Most kinds of political contacts and activities of the man will be 
effected largely through documentary means of reading, casting ballots, 
perhaps writing. He may never attend a gathering of fellow townsmen, 
and yet be a fairly effective citizen. The members are law-abiding largely 
on an automatic basis, when once apprised of municipal needs and de- 
mends. 

e. The members of each family have much sociability, but increasingly, 
on a specialized group basis, where maximum of (a) like-mindedness, 
or else (b) concentrated stimulus due to differences, can be procured.. 
Husbands and wives have their respective clubs, as have in slightly less 
formal ways the boys and girls, after eight or ten years of age. The 
quest for social satisfactions within the family group tends to diminish, 

/. Even more is this true of the cultural relationships where printed 
matter, school facilities, specialized societies and clubs make their respective 
appeals, not to the family group as a whole, but to specialized tastes, as- 
pirations, and intelligence levels within it. 

6. A "rural" area in an eastern state may still have many of the older 
"community" qualities. There may have been little immigration in recent 
years, hence a very plexus of blood relationships by intermarriage exists. 
Intermingling at trading centers, churches, fairs, picnics, granges, and 
even town meetings and court days have produced a wide range of mutual 
acquaintanceship. But there are distinct political, church, and other par- 
ties, as well as sumptuary classes and cultural levels. 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 8i 

There is little local political machinery — many of the police, judicial, 
road-building, and other state functions being exercised on an honorific, 
or at least "part-time," basis. Conventional customs are more important 
than ordinances. 

Economic production is not highly organized, hence there may be much 
simple exchange of services, barter, borrowing, and simple voluntary relief 
of the needy. 

There are few specialized sociability or cultural agencies, although for 
years the men have made the tavern, saloon, station, store, stable, court- 
house steps, or hotel porch serve their purposes in this direction, whilst the 
women have in a measure used the church for the same purposes. 

There is no great amount of reading, hence cultural cravings (including 
desire for "news") must be satisfied by gossip, face-to-face meetings, etc. 

This rural area will include a village center and the adjacent farms. 
Opportunities to share in the kinds of community life noted above will be 
relatively abundant for those near the center and meager for those to 
whom distance, bad roads, poor means of conveyance, cold, and diffidence 
form barriers. The center will have much community sentiment, under- 
standing, cooperation (at least, within sect, party, and other "fragmental" 
divisions), whilst the outskirt residents will have little, though the sur- 
viving blood ties, church connections, and trade dependencies will preserve 
something. 

But almost the entire range of "community" activities here will have 
something primitive, antiquated, and, for many critics, "cheap and crude" 
about them. Judged by current tendencies it would seem that : 

a. Secondary or collateral kinship relations — cousins, aunts, grand- 
parents, relations-in-law, even brothers and sisters after thier families 
are started — seem to weaken under all conditions of modern social evolu- 
tion. 

b. The unspecialized economic production of the primitive farm or 
home seems to have little future. Modern demands flout the ill kept gen- 
eral merchandise store. Even the most primitive communities in America 
tend increasingly to import foodstuffs or wares produced at a distance, 
and they struggle harder to find specialized marketable products or services 
to give in exchange. 

c. Demands on religious leadership become more exacting, and perhaps 
prevalence of scientific thought makes maintenance of religious fellowship 
harder. 

d. Primitive methods of exercising inclusive political functions fail to 
meet new needs, especially as to road-making, selection of legislators, taxa- 



82 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tion for and administration of schools, policing, lighting, inspection and 
standardizing of products, etc. 

e. Probably party politics is excessively dominated by the keener minds 
developed in larger centers. 

/. Cravings develop for "more congenial" sociability contacts, especially 
on the part of adolescents and the better educated young people. These 
are tremendously aggravated if the region is resorted to by rest, or 
pleasure, seekers from larger centers, or is easily accessible to large 
centers. 

g. Commercialized cultural agencies — shows, moving pictures, news- 
papers, magazines, etc. — gradually are preferred to voluntary local efforts. 

In part these primitive activities come to be regarded as "bad" for the 
larger state or society; but in part also their crudity is only a matter of 
valuation made by "sophisticated" outsiders or local members who have 
had a chance to visit elsewhere and who return to make incessant invidious 
comparisons about cheap shows, "bum town," "farmer voters," etc. These 
judgments often ignore fundamental social values; but they are of real 
effect, nevertheless, in lessening confidence in, and taste for, historic 
community activities. 

7. Many marked contrasts can be found between the older rural com- 
munity described above and a newer rural community found in almost 
any western state. In the latter : 

a. Blood connections are few and usually little considered. 

h. Economic production is usually more specialized from the start. 
Hence crops for market are a larger concern, local stores as centers of 
food and other supplies play a large part, and questions of capital equip- 
ment — machines, roads, elevators, creameries — rise in importance. Ex- 
change of service dwindles, while formal corporate efforts for irrigation, 
selling, etc., may develop. Some functions are specialized on a strictly 
commercial basis — private ownership of equipment and contracting — for 
hay-baling, threshing, house-building, fruit-canning, pipe-laying, cattle- 
butchering, breeding ser^vice, etc. A large proportion of the farmers have 
bank accounts, and some borrow bank capital freely. Machinery, firearms, 
and good live stock are often brought from a distance ; and the mail-order 
house plays a part in domestic supplies. 

c. Fewer historic associations cluster about worship, and successful 
churches tend to pattern after urban types. 

d. In government, as in economic affairs, there is a steady tendency 
toward impersonality — that is, substitution of law for custom, of central- 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 83 

ized expert service (in road-making, drainage, school administration) for 
semi-voluntary local service, use of documents and advertising instead of 
viva voce contacts. 

e. Desires for sociability tend toward urban types, in spite of great 
difficulties of meeting them for the unprosperous, or where distances are 
great, roads bad, etc. Hence, in spite often of great economic prosperity, 
some members of family groups are wretched — most often, first, the un- 
married mature daughters, then the prosperous mother, seeking social 
"outlet," next the young men. Perhaps children are content, as well as 
the master man so long as he is busy "forging ahead." 

/. Cultural interests in urban neighborhoods are but slightly ministered 
to on a "local community" basis — that is, through reading, clubs, theaters, 
associations. Each cultural type tends toward its own kind. In rural 
life of most modern types there are many family groups that strive to imi- 
tate urban standards, but only a few can succeed at present, in spite of 
newspapers, books, phonographs, club work, schools, and commercialized 
"movies." 

8. If the foregoing analysis of conditions and tendencies of different 
types of rural life is correct, how shall we evaluate them in terms of 
various types of social well-being? The sociologist knows, of course, that 
in dynamic societies transitions are always taking place, often under 
pressure of fundamental social forces, and that sometimes these transitions 
•bring a net balance of evil, either to specific individuals, to specific family, 
vocational, or party groups, or perhaps to society collectively as found in 
the neighborhood, the nation, or civilization. In the passage of the old 
forms there is always something mournful, something suggestive of loss, 
of decay, of death, because of hallowed associations. The values of new 
forms are not always apparent, especially to the elders, the custom-bound, 
the beneficiaries of the old order. 

a. The lessening of the intimacies of collateral kinship in the new order 
is counted by many a loss. Sound evaluation here is probably not yet 
practicable. 

h. The older type of community gave women opportunities for friendly 
sociable intercourse which the new types in their earlier or poor forms 
largely deny, but which in their more advanced urban and rural forms 
materially increase. 

c. Perhaps the same considerations apply to single persons during court- 
ship years. 

d. Do "religious values" decline under the new order? This is hard 



84 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

to determine, since older communities in America (with some exceptions 
like Mormons, Pennsylvania Dutch, early Puritans, etc.) grew up under, 
or early developed, sects (church), while all modern communities are 
affected by the agnosticisms growing out of advances in science. 

e. Cultural values of some kinds suffer under the new order, perhaps 
others gain. The subject needs analysis in the light of agreed upon stand- 
ards of cultural values. 

/. Probably strictly local political values (associate) lose, whilst (fed- 
erate) central ones gain. 

g. Economic values, including defense and schooling, probably im- 
prove, but we are still too near the vicissitudes of transitions to be cer- 
tain. 

9. Comparisons of the "social values" of the new with the old type of 
community can be valid only by taking in each corresponding stages of 
evolution. In new western settlements "economic" activities are the central 
facts of "community" life, as Galpin shows. In older settlements or neigh- 
borhoods this may not now appear to be so ; but how if the older settlement 
were studied in its early stages? Neighborhoods present some analogies 
in this respect to families — during earlier stages cultural, social, and other 
functions must be subordinated to processes of adjustment to insure se- 
curity and a livelihood ; then^ with economic needs somewhat met, or at 
least routines well established, attention is turned to other functions. What 
were the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in New England towns, 
culturally, governmentally, and even esthetically ? 

10. Some tentative findings for discussion: 

a. The word "community" is too vague and too inclusive of opposed ele- 
ments to serve a useful purpose in describing rural life. More specific and 
"pure" social factors should be analyzed. 

b. Every formation of new settlements witnesses the development of 
conditions that bring some losses and some gains of social values. New 
bottles must be made for the new wine. 

c. Evolution of knowledge, law, economic specialization, standards of 
living, and mechanical invention creates new conditions affecting the vari- 
ous components of community life. But final values must be arrived at by 
special studies, and results assembled for "composite" valuation. 

d. It is probably futile to try to revive "community" functions of ob- 
solescent types, unless new mechanisms give distinctly new opportunities 
— e. g., consolidated churches or schools, new roads, central means of 
diversion, rural mail delivery, cooperative tools (elevators, packing- 
houses, etc.), the Grange. Especially futile is it to try to revive com- 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 85 

munity cooperations for sociability, politics, religion (conversion and 
revival). 

e. Is a "community center" needed, or if provided (as a commodious 
warmed building, etc.) will it prove functional? This requires study of 
the functions that can best be met there. Are these: Economic? Re- 
ligious ? Sociable for adolescents and adult "single" persons, young work- 
men, older mothers, clubable young men, older men, children? Cultural, 
same groups? Political (governmental)? Political (party)? If a "com- 
munity" center is designed to provide these, what are some facilities essen- 
tial to it? 

WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY? 

Sociological analysis shows that the word "community" has now many 
unlike and even conflicting meanings. Scientific usage requires that it 
should be used generally with qualifying terms, as, for example : neigh- 
borhood community, village community, urban or municipal community, 
business community, provincial or state commonwealth or community, com- 
munity ,of nations, community of economic interests (of a specified kind), 
school community, and the like. Rural sociologists are still trying to dis- 
cover and define the American "rural community." One thinks it is really 
the "rurban" community — a composite or union of a town with its "tribu- 
tary" host of isolated farm households or family groups. 

Scientifically it would seem that there is a "community" wherever there 
is community of interest, even though this may not be consciously in the 
mind of each member, having been committed to the routine or institution. 
For example: 

a. The nation is our community as far as defense against outside foes, 
the transmission of mails, the promotion of agricultural research, the con- 
servation of forests, the conduct of formal international relationships, the 
care of the Indians, the inspection of meats of interstate trade, and the 
promotion of certain kinds of vocational education are concerned. We 
look now to the nation more than to the state for regulation of railway 
rates, suppression of traffic in alcoholic liquors, direction in scientific road- 
building, and public regulation of strikes. 

h. The state is our community as respects all permissive and mandatory 
legislation, the provision of large portions of the funds for schools and 
public health, the inspection of banks, the provision of higher public edu- 
cation, the building of "state" roads, etc. In many cases it shares with 
the nation in our sentimental loyalty to "commonwealth." 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



c. The "city" for dwellers therein is in large part our community for 
the execution of laws — providing public education, streets, police, courti, 
parks, fire protection, etc. It is also the normal center with reference to 
which we associate the size, character, and functioning of quasi-public 
agencies such as churches, amusements, stores, local transportation, social 
organizations, etc. 

d. In New England the "urban" town'is a center for local political and 
quasi-public functions. Elsewhere the county takes political functions, but 
not Always the others. 

e. In many parts of the country the village or "village-town" witk its 
tributary rural territory constitutes a real, even if largely impersonal, com- 
munity area of commercial exchange (mechanistic economic cooperation), 
as well as of more intimate school, religious, and fellowship relationships. 

PROBLEMS 0^ FELLOWSHIP IN MODERN COMMUNITIES ^° 

Social relationships are differently affected by social evolution. When 
cities, armies, factories, schools, or festivals bring people together, not by 
tens but by hundreds or thousands, there result losses of personal intimacy, 
fellowship, friendliness, and sociabihty that seem often to take all the 
human savor out of life. We are chilled by thoughts of the "dehumanized" 
situations that result when one employer has a thousand employees, when 
one merchant has ten thousand customers, when "nigh-dwellers" have no 
occasion to buy or sell or borrow or otherwise seriously cooperate with one 
another. "Neighborliness" thins out in large cities, and often in rural 
areas as well, partly because life is so full and well satisfied without those 
cooperations that have historically been the soil of neighborliness. The 
"social poverty" — by which is usually meant poverty of those personal, 
friendly, non-utilitarian relations that are often called social in a narrow 
meaning of the term — of town, countryside, and city block seems tragic 
to many besides readers of "Main Street." But a Galsworthy finds dire 
social poverty even among dwellers in choice suburbs where everything is 
"middle class." 

The fact seems to be that evolution of the agencies of economic pro- 
duction, government, defense, trade, education, diffusion of culture, wor- 
ship, and even of recreation, tends steadily toward an "impersonalizing" 
of large proportions of the cooperations or other relationships involved 

'" Read Sinclair Lewis, Main Street; H. P. Douglas, The Little Town; and W. L. 
Anderson, The Country Town (Ch. 5). 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 87 

— and hence toward poverty of sociability or fellowship, unless special 
means are devised to promote this function. The modern city, the Ameri- 
can rural neighborhood, the modern factory, and many other large social 
groupings have obviously, not yet adequately developed these special- 
ized agencies of fellowship. 

Sensitive social workers feel the difficulties, sometimes without having 
discerned and evaluated all the factors involved. In the cities they strive 
to produce "block parties," community music, socializing pageantry, and 
neighborhood festivals. In rural areas they seek to build "community 
centers" and to enhance community interest of various sorts — includ- 
ing, sometimes, new community industries. They look hopefully toward 
church consolidation, cooperative trading, and collective provision of the 
"fellowship recreations" so much desired by adolescents. The saloon, 
commercial dance, commercialized pool-rooms and "movies," lodge- 
rooms, and other agencies compete with philanthropic effort, but too 
many of their by-products are deleterious to insure social safety or 
satisfaction. 

The problem is complicated by the fact that human nature craves 
not one kind only,, but many kinds, of human fellowship. Much as a 
young man desires the fellowship of others like himself, he can in any 
port, or factory, or mine, or ship become "fed up" in this way. He 
hungers after some fellowship with good women, with children, and even 
with men quite unlike himself. Children have some social cravings for 
the stimulus of elders. Home-staying women are somewhat impoverished 
if they can associate only with their own kind. Elderly folk need the 
heartening stimulus of the young. 

' Under some conditions people may become excessively "addicted" to 
one kind of* fellowship. Perhaps the social evils of saloon, tavern, women's 
card parties, and dances grow in part out of this. It is not impossible 
that the prolonged intimacies of adolescents enforced by boarding-school 
and coeducational high school, supplemented by night parties and summer 
camps for the same ages, produce many of the pathological, self-centered 
social attitudes so often discovered by social economists among our pros- 
perous, middle, and so-called "cultured" classes. 

Social psychology is still too young to give more than suggestions as 
to the character and complexity of contemporary problems of extend- 
ing and enriching fellowship in neighborhood communities. The ap- 
proach to these problems can be helped through diagnosis of personal 
experience in answer to questions like the following : 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FURTHER INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. By analysis of social conditions known to you, describe, under varying 
conditions, fellowship satisfactions springing from (a) voluntary and (&) 
forced intimate association of : 

a. Elderly (fifty to seventy) and young (twenty to thirty) of same "social 
level." 

b. White and colored, same ages, same economic levels. 

c. Culturally advanced and sensitive, with culturally phlegmatic, same ages. 

2. Under what circumstances are large and vital manifestations of "fellow- 
ship" possible between : 

a. A pioneer or recluse and a "city man" ? 

b. An elderly man and a girl or young woman? 
'c. A religious devotee and a rank skeptic? 

d. Master and apprentice ? 

e. Middle-aged woman and unrelated middle-aged man? 

3. Disentangle some of the factors of "fellowship" from the previous cases, 
under heads of : intellectual stimuli ; new experience ; "pure companionship." 

4. Endeavor to explain : 

a. The frequent "fellowship" of man and dog. 

b. The "lonesomeness" of individual men and women so often found in 
hotels, Y. M. C. A.'s, and other places of congregation. 

c. The enrichments of fellowship following the banding together of primi- 
tive Christians, Salvation Army workers, crowds created by conditions of 
flood or earthquake (and these often including great diversities of race, 
economic condition, age, etc.). 

5. Endeavor to analyze the various "fellowship" hungers you have observed 
— for example : 

a. In homogeneous large groups of men, for feminine companionship. 

b. Same, among women of boarding-houses, etc. 

c. Of middle-aged women for masculine companionship other than parent, 
husband, or brother. 

d. Oi middle-aged peo|ile for little children or adolescent youth. 

6. Diagnose some of the fellowship relationships that should normally 
accompany these social relationships : 

a. Family or kinship, including conjugal, parental, fraternal, etc. 

b. Economic, including those of co-workers, partners, employer and employee, 
buyer and seller, master and servant, co-investors, borrower and lender, etc. 

c. Political, including those of fellow party men; ruler and ruled; law- 
makers, law enforcers, and law respecters; etc. 

d. Religious, including those of co-worshipers, priest and disciple, etc. 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 89 

e. Cultural, including those of teacher and pupil, co-readers of books and 
journals, cooperative improvement clubs, etc. 

/. Fellowship (sociable or companionable), including those of "fraternal" 
groups, parties, receptions, entertainments, etc. 

g. Between writers like Longfellow and present-day readers. 

h. Between engineers who one hundred years ago planned upper Manhattan 
and present-day dwellers of the island. 

i. Between West Point of to-day and the rest of us in a possible war twenty 
years hence. 

y. Between propagators of the plague in Asia and those of us here who must 
erect quarantine walls. 

7. Show how under primitive conditions the establishment of ordinary co- 
operative relationships was usually accompanied by personal or companionable 
relationships — especially in cooperations for defense, hunting, production, 
trade, and utilization. Show how elaborate organization of armies, churches, 
business, and schools often bars intimate or friendly relationships. Possibly 
modern life has carried impersonality of social relationships so far that 
pathological results are entailed. What, for example, seem to you some 
excessive losses due to : 

a. The efficiency and diminished personal contacts of modern railway and 
steamer transportation, the modern hotel, department-store, or street-car 
system ?. 

b. That system of production which gives regional allocation of cotton goods 
manufacture to New England; wheat and flour production to Minnesota; fur- 
niture production to Grand Rapids ; soft coal to southern Illinois for the 
consumer in western Iowa who produces chiefly pork for market? 

c. That system of marketing in which price is plainly marked on goods of 
"standard brand," so that the customer needs no persuasion from the seller, 
^nd to whom the latter may, indeed, be almost an automaton. 

d. The declining interest of families in relatives one degree removed. 



PROBLEMS FOR EDUCATION 

The neighborhood community ranks next after the home as the most 
important source of educative experience and development for children. 
Class room and school are in large measure the sources and the clearing- 
house of endless small associations — gangs, cliques, clubs, sets — through 
which such education proceeds. 

The membership of the neighborhood community is, like that of the 
family, extremely heterogeneous — male or female, old and young, lei- 
surely and preoccupied. Often, too, it embraces poor and prosperous, 
ignorant and learned, moral and immoral, native and alien. Out of this 



90 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

composite there commonly emerge or can be discerned certain prevailing 
or dominant conmiunity qualities or standards as to any feature or func- 
tion having community significance. 

Hence arise a large variety of problems of community education. Can 
the neighborhood community be so educated that its composite qualities 
and influence shall be approved by those holding moderately high stand- 
ards of social value? Can it be made to suppress or mitigate crime, 
vice, idleness, vulgarity? Can it be induced to demand and support good 
streets, roads, water, shade, recreation facilities, sanitation ? Will it 
make of itself a good "school" for the educative development of the ris- 
ing generation? These problems are elsewhere considered in some detail. 

On the other side are the counterpart problems of educational objectives 
in schools. The children of to-day will control the community of a, 
couple of decades hence. What shall be included in their social education 
for the purpose of preparing them to maintain higher community stand- 
ards in their day? Historic forms of school education have doubtless 
done much to inculcate ideals and aspirations to this end ; but it has 
probably done little in the direction of concrete appreciations, evalua- 
tions, and insights. These objectives of education are to be adequately 
developed only on the basis of a better social economy than has yet been 
evolved — or at least popularized. 

It is apparent that some of the most .important problems of con- 
temporary education here must await further research looking to the dis- 
covery of the really valid neighborhood community functions in these 
days when social evolution tends to subtract from the neighborhood group, 
so many of its historic and life-giving responsibilities. Perhaps every 
neighborhood should have its "community center" — but first it should be 
determined what are the vital and necessary functions toward the discharge 
of which that center should contribute. This problem has not been solved 
as yet for either rural or urban neighborhoods. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

(Problems of Neighborhood Socialization are everywhere acutely before 
social economists and educators. But sociological materials in book 
form are scarce. The student who can give time to the subject will con- 
sult: R. M. Maciver, Community, a Sociological Study; N. L. Sims, The 
Rural Community; L. K. Matthews, The Expansion of New England; 
G. L. Gomme, The Village Community; J. W. Bookwalter, Rural vs. 
Urban; J. L. Hani fan, The Community Center; F. L. McVery, The 



NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GROUPS 91 

Making of a Town; and K. Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress). 

1. Compare with the tentative findings of this chapter L. H. Bailey, The 
State and the Farmer. 

2. Summarize findings in J. K. Hart, Educational Resources of Village 
and Communities. 

3. Report essential conclusions of Sir H. Plunkett, The Rural Life Prob- 
lem of the United States. 

4. Consult: Giddings, F., Principles of Sociology (Ch. 4, Bk. Ill, Demo- 
genic Association). 



CHAPTER VII 

URBAN COMMUNITY GROUPS'- 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE American reader is aware that the census for 1920 shows about 
half the people of the United States to be living in urban com- 
munities. Most rural or village dwellers in the more thickly settled parts 
of America also frequently visit cities for trade, diversion, or education. 
Unmarried sons and daughters of farmers migrate in great numbers 
toward centers of population. During recent years the bulk of the im- 
migrants to this country have settled in cities where wage-earning employ- 
ments are abundant. 

To the average man or woman the "city" seems to provide far more 
opportunities for work and for diversion than do country or village. 
To adults -with cultural interests, or with ambitions for their children, 
cities seem to offer best opportunities for schools, theaters, libraries, 
and select fellowship. Formerly cities were looked upon as places where 
the death rate was high, where poverty foregathered in slums, and where 
crime and vice abounded. But in the modern city these conditions yield, 
apparently, faster than in non-urban areas. 

Few young Americans seem to have more than a surface contact with 
the complexities of those urban communities with which they have been 
in contact. Nevertheless, each reader has considerable experience upon 
which to draw in answering these questions : 

1. What essential lines of production are now commonly carried on in cities? 
What products or services are commonly rendered to farmers by urban work- 
ers? Why do semi-skilled workers, including large numbers of very young 
men and women, throng to cities ? Compare city with country in opportuni- 
ties for adults of average ability and no capital to find year-round work. 

2. What functions useful to dwellers in cities are now largely performed 
by governmental agencies? How is it with like functions in rural neighbor- 
hoods? Separately consider: water supply; places and facilities of physical 
recreation; places and facilities of intellectual recreation; fire protection; 
conservation of health ; police protection ; highways ; architectural art. 

^ No satisfactory term is available to designate that kind of "federate" group 
of individuals which makes up the true city. Politically, they constitute a municipal 
community; socially and culturally, they are an urban community. In England the 
word "town" is applicable, but that word has with us too many other connotations. 

92 



URBAN COMMUNITY GROUPS 93 

3. What public functions appear to be well developed and performed on 
a commercial basis in cities ? Compare with country in these respects, giving 
separate consideration to : news distribution ; drama and photodrama ; facili- 
ties for joint worship; congenial companionship; availability of medical help. 

4. Of these four types of community, which would you prefer to settle 
down in for twenty years, assuming that your economic opportunities would 
be the same in all cases : a rural neighborhood remote from a city ; a town of 
2500 inhabitants, 200 miles from a large city; a town of 5000, suburban to, 
and within 25 minutes' train ride from, a large city; or a large city? Give 
reasons for your preference in terms of the social advantages and disadvan- 
tages of each type of community. 

5. These four persons ask you to advise them in which type of the above 
communities they should "settle down" for the next twenty years : a young 
man of very high ability; a young man of industrious habits but distinctly 
low-grade ability; a man and wife with fairly strong cultural interests, who 
have just inherited a moderate fortune; an elderly farmer, retiring with a 
substantial income. Why, in each case ? 

6. Of the four communities named in (4), which will probably provide the 
best : conditions for conserving health ; security from theft or violence ; facili- 
ties for physical recreation; opportunities for self-culture; stimulating social 
contacts and good fellowship ; incentives for right worship ? 

7. "The modern city is a tremendous social laboratory, and is performing 
endless experiments in collective action." Explain. 

8. Does it appear to you that in America cities "exploit" the rural classes? 
Does it seem very important to the welfare of the people that more persons 
should "stay on the farm" or go "back to the farm" ? Why ? 

9*. What forms of production chiefly necessitate the dispersions of rural 
life? The concentrations of urban life? Does modern life demand relatively 
more of "raw" materials, or of "elaborated" products as contrasted with 
earlier life? 

10. With what approximate number of persons in a city of 50,000 will a 
"live" and social man of forty have intimate acquaintance ? A speaking ac- 
quaintance? Cite certain truly "cooperative" relationships he must maintain 
with strangers. Separately consider : cooperative voting in carrying on city 
government; economic relationship with purveyors of milk, groceries, news- 
papers, theaters, mail-carriers ; other relationships with large schools, churches, 
etc. Is the city a "community" in which large numbers must learn "imper- 
sonal" cooperation ? Show that even recreation and diversion for adults, as 
well as much play for the young, take on impersonal aspects. 

11. What advantages accrue to you from civic membership in your city or 
town? What do you give in return? Are your net advantages greater or 
less than those derived in that city by : a large real-estate owner ; an unmar- 
ried negro casual laborer; a manual laborer with five children; a tourist 



94 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

shopping for only a week? What are the qualities of your emotional, and of 
your rational, patriotism for your city? 

12. What are the agencies making for political group efficiency in your 
city? What are the ways in which these agencies affect you positively? Po- 
tentially? In what ways do you cooperate in providing, upholding, recreating, 
and reforming these agencies ? Separately consider : your political conformi- 
ties (respect for laws and ordinances) ; your contributions to public opinion; 
your purposive support of "party" agencies designed to affect these political 
agencies; your voting; your self-initiated service of a destructive or construc- 
tive nature. 



MODERN CITIES ^ 

The cities of the ancient world were largely outgrowths of concentra- 
tion of governmental agencies — usually those of conquering classes. 
They were built, sometimes around centers of worship, sometimes at 
ports, most often at favorable centers of defense. Much of ancient his- 
tory centers in cities enriched by tribute-taking conquerors — Babylon, 
Thebes, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Delhi, Mexico. The spread 
of conquest from a center like Athens or Rome gave the national organi- 
zation known as the "city-state." 

Village communities, built round a rock-perched castle or shore landing, 
expanded into the typical cities of medieval Europe, when once manu- 
facture or trade centered in them. Many a Venice and Edinburgh grew 
round a spot from which enemies could easily be kept at a distance. A 
London, Paris, or Hamburg was a convenient market place for wat'er- 
borne commerce. 

But the true city-building era begins with the mechanical revolution 
of the eighteenth century. Production by power-driven machinery, no 
less than trade, favors, where it does not necessitate, the creation of cities. 
Tillage of the soil, even when most intensive, makes only for village-sized 
communities. Pastoral life needs not only dispersion, but, in the semi- 
arid regions of the world, nomadism. Hunting and fishing usually scatter 
peoples still more. 

To our surprise and perhaps dismay, we find nearly half the people 
of the United States now living in cities.^ Only a small minority of the 
populations of Belgium, England, Massachusetts, New York, or West- 
phalia now live outside of urban communities. When once the free lands 

^ For origins see Prince Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Ch. 5 and 6, Mutual Aid in Me- 
dieval Cities). 
^ Ross, Principles (Ch. 2, City and Country). 



URBAN COMMUNITY GROUPS 95 

of new countries have been possessed, the more progressive men and 
women strive cityward, as shown by the recent social evolution of the 
Mississippi Valley, the Pacific Slope, Argentina, New Zealand, and now 
southern Africa and Siberia. Only the very prosperous among well 
educated people in England, France, and the United States now live by 
preference in the country — and such residence even for them would be 
oppressive if they could not possess "town houses" to which report is 
practicable when the "social season" is on. 

The growth of urban communities is one of the startling facts of 
modern social evolution. The larger cities of Argentina, Australia, Mex- 
ico, and Brazil have expanded hardly less than have those of England, 
Germany, and the United States. But that growth owes little to the 
migration of country folk to cities in order to live there on country- 
produced incomes. The vast majority are in cities because of the superior 
economic opportunities to be found, or at least made possible by their 
presence. Modern cities are chiefly products of the specialization of all 
forms of elaborative production (fabrication, manufacture) away from 
the home and the "one-man shop," chiefly because of the evolution of 
power-driven machinery. 

The modern municipality is the most socially dynamic of all regional 
social groupings.* Cooperation, democracy, collective ownership, and 
socialization of leadership are here found in their most vital forms. 
Only the necessities of large-scale defense against common foes have 
ever driven men to degrees and kinds of cooperation equal to those now 
found in the larger cities of each civilized country. Even in medieval 
cities oligarchical control so expanded as to present many of the char- 
acteristics of democratic control. Scores of functions, elsewhere left 
to private initiative, are in cities accepted frankly as deserving public sup- 
port and control, such as disposal of waste, policing, water supply, high- 
ways, lighting, ' fire protection, relief of sick and poor, control of com- 
municable disease, provision of special types of education, and many 
others. Men of greatest ability commonly gravitate to urban centers, 
where public or private service may offer them responsibilities and re- 
wards commensurate with their abilities. 

While some of the rapid social evolution of urban communities may 
properly be ascribed to the progressive character of the inhabitants, 
much more of it, obviously, must be laid to the poignant and vividly per- 
ceived needs that arise when large numbers of human beings try to 

*See F. C. Howe, The Modern City and Its Problems (Ch. 15 and 16, City Plan- 
ning). 



96 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

live in a limited space. Crime, disease, poverty, fire, famine, and other 
evils easily become acute there, and even spread like a plague, if there 
be not some kind of collective control. Necessity is here clearly the mother 
of much invention. During the last half-century progress that can well 
be called wonderful has been made in the more advanced cities in supply- 
ing water, keeping streets in repair, making the highways free from crime, 
providing schools, and eliminating fire hazard. But so recent are these 
achievements that many of us still hold the belief, once generally true, 
that vice, crime, indolence, grime, accident, and preventable disease are 
the natural riotous growths of large cities. 

Nor is it likely that social evolution will ever slow down in urban com- 
munities, unless the whole state is profoundly disorganized — as in Austria 
of 1920. Contemporary applications of sociological knowledge are best 
made in municipalities. Scientific understanding of right principles of 
city planning, housing, rapid transport, exchange of products, public 
education, prevention of disease, and provision of facilities for recreation 
far outstrip the abilities of municipalities to apply such knowledge. Most 
of the improvements planned by students of social economy for village and 
countryside aim at best only to bring to small communities some of the 
supposed advantages of urban residence. Even the social and apocalyptic 
dreamers of centuries ago thought of Heaven as a commodious, clean, 
safe, and beautiful city ! 

The social efficiency of the modern city is, however, very incomplete 
as yet, or, more correctly, not all the possible factors of complete social 
efficiency have yet been realized.^ The city has doubtless been able to 
capitalize moral and other social qualities evolved during hundreds of cen- 
turies of family and village group life. It is not certain that an urban 
environment can improve or even conserve these' qualities in successive 
generations. Social contacts and cooperations between individuals are 
more frequent and intense, usually, in city than in village; but fellow- 
ship associations or neighborly qualities tend toward atrophy or, per- 
haps more correctly, they become specialized, exclusive, and socially un- 
democratic. The city multiplies social interdependencies, but divests 
them of friendly personal accompaniments. Public and private services 
become increasingly commercial and impersonal. But impersonal service 
is likely to be mechanical service, whether in sale of goods, care of sick, 
or administration of justice. The human and, no less important, the 
natural surroundings of village and farm give experiences not to be 

*Read S. M. Harrison, Social Conditions in an American City (Ch. 2, General 
Facts). 



URBAN COMMUNITY GROUPS 97 

found in large centers of population. Whether a people can live long and 
well in the artificial environment of cities is still in question. But, for 
the present, and whether wisely or unwisely, much of that which we call 
civilization — with its various special goods of wealth, security, specialized 
association, education, beauty, and health — is assuredly investing its heri- 
tage most heavily in cities. 

Federate social relationships almost completely control within the 
urban community. Most necessary political and many other functions 
are largely, if not wholly, discharged through relatively impersonal agen- 
cies. Most voters may never see their mayor, or know the names of 
their policemen. "Bargaining" disappears from all good shops, "standard 
brands" of wares are largely dispensed, and customers' names are known 
only for the most formal purposes. Streets are paved and kept clean, 
quarantine enforced, mail delivered, and taxes assessed without personal 
contacts of the served and the serving. The voter selects his principal 
public servants by ballot, these operate through documented minutes, 
ordinances, and reports, and the newspapers become the chief means of 
destructive or constructive criticism. 

The city dweller delivers most of his economic product to others of 
whom he knows Httle or nothing personally. He draws upon all the mar- 
kets of the world for what he must consume, and very frequently in com- 
plete obliviousness to the sources and to the qualities of those from whom 
he draws. Water, artificial light, and transportation are taken in the same 
iny)ersonal spirit in which he takes rain, sunlight, and the winds. 

Artificiality of life is the necessary lot of city dwellers. Some years 
ago sociologists believed that human beings could not reproduce beyond 
three generations under these conditions. Now they are not so sure, and 
some even think that the city may be permanently a better place than the 
open country, all factors considered. But it is certain that the instinctive 
nature of man finds strange things in urban life. It finds excess of 
gregariousness and social stimulation, a poverty of contact with "natural 
things" — stars, running water, domestic animals, woods, steeps, storms. 
The natural apprenticeship of the boy to the man, the girl to the woman, 
in a wide range of useful activities, is apt to be wanting in apartment 
houses and factory regions. Hard pavements, hivelike schools, smoke, 
dust, noise, incessant flow of humanity — these are the omnipresent pres- 
sures and stimuli. 

But the gregarious nature of men, perhaps of some races more than 
others, seems easily to be captivated by the life of the crowd. Apparently 
peoples become "addicted" to city life as they do not to country life. It 



98 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

is like a habit-forming drug. This susceptibility may be fundamental, 
or it may be only a temporary aberration due to the fact that for the mo- 
ment (as the ages of human evolution run) the city environment has out- 
distanced the rural in developing lures of lights, convivial fellowship, 
and sumptuary gratifications. 

If, however, "large-scale" production is destined to produce the same 
advantages in worship, education, commercialized amusements, police 
protection, and ministry to esthetic sensibilities that it has already pro- 
duced in transportation, manufacture, mining, and building, then the 
urbanization of large portions of the population seems inevitable. 

PROBLEMS OF URBAN OR MUNICIPAL GROUPS 

I. Municipal socialism is at once the ever pressing need and the source 
of the most gigantic problems for the modern city. The range of functions 
requiring collective action steadily increases. Policing, disposal of waste, 
fire protection, maintenance of parks, schooling, and even street building 
have ceased to be private or semi-private functions only in very recent, 
years. Now municipalities engage in coHectivistic provision of light, 
water supply, libraries, museums, playgrounds, dispensaries, hospitals, 
harbors, and even transportation. 

But these facilities can no longer be provided by oligarchies, as were 
the circuses and baths of Rome, and the walls and navies of medieval 
cities. In many ways the modern city strives to be even more demo- 
cratic, politically, than province or nation. The city presents in its 
acutest form that central enigma of the modern political world — how 
can democracy of suffrage be conserved whilst developing administrative 
efficiency ? 

Numberless political devices are being experimented with in America 
as well as in other countries. The state is invoked for a kind of super- 
control through charter provisions, inspections, and endless statutory 
regulation. Over London the British Parliament exercises supervision, as 
do the legislatures of Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois over their 
largest cities. Salaries of policemen and teachers in New York City are 
fixed by state statute. The head of the police system of Boston is ap- 
pointed by the Governor. It is even threatened, sometimes, to invoke 
national authority against alleged obstructive municipal administration 
of those cities that are national gateways for trade and immigration. 

Within municipalities various expedients to reduce "politics" are 
devised — bicameral legislative bodies, popularly elected executives, rigid 



URBAN COMMUNITY GROUPS 99 



civil service, "short ballots," autocratic powers for mayor, "commission 
government," "financial independence of the municipal school district," 
and many others. The intricacies of municipal functions, the many 
political jobs available, and the presence of hosts of apparently non- 
taxpaying voters, combine to make "boss rule" easy. We tend to associate 
the words "corrupt politics" and "graft" largely with municipal adminis- 
tration.'' 

Nevertheless, from the standpoint of modern social economy, the city 
is one of the most vital and promising of all social organizations. It pro- 
vides an abundant theater for social action and experiment of the most 
scientific character. Its political defects are not easily concealed from the 
multitude. Nowhere else have the politically able-minded and honest 
equal opportunities to make their powers felt for good. Nowhere else 
are there equal opportunities for the development of those political means 
which social scientists approve — publicity, visible leadership, permanent 
tenure for public servants not responsible for policies, concentration of 
responsibility, and the systematic education of the rank and file of voters. 

2. Urban environments are exceedingly artificial in both their material 
and their social aspects. They seem to accelerate the pace of living. 
Social economists are still very uncertain as to whether cities do not 
"incinerate" the hordes that pour into them. Can we expect urban 
dwellers, even after present ideals of good housing, sanitary water supply, 
and fly-screened markets shall have been realized, to reproduce themselves 
generation after generation, as have, obviously, village dwellers tilling the 
soil? 

From the standpoint of the future of race and culture this is a problem 
of the first magnitude. When urban peoples constituted but a minor 
fraction of a given population, it was perhaps of no great biological 
moment that the names of their first families became extinct "in the 
third generation." The rural stock was still sound and abundant. But 
the modern situation is widely dififerent where, as in Scotland, Japan, 
Massachusetts, Ohio, and many other places, rural peoples do not increase, 
or even absolutely decline, whilst cities grow by leaps and baunds. 

It is not that cities now kill their children, or even their young men and 
women. Perhaps once they did this excessively. But the families of all 
urban dwellers of more than average economic well-being are abnormally 
small. Child-labor legislation, compulsory schooling, the various rising 
standards of private and public well-being now imposed, all conspire to 
reduce the families of nearly all but the improvident and irresponsible. It 
" See Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities. 



loo EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

is in cities that the possibilities of differential fecundity will receive their 
first decisive test. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Betts^<L. W. The Leaven of a Great City (Ch. 6, A Social Experience). 
Ellwood,, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 12, The 

Problem of the City). 
Howe, F. C. The Modern City and Its Problem (Ch. 4, The Modern 

City; Ch. 5, The American City). 
James, H. The Building of Cities (a bright primer of essentials). 
Riis, J. Battle ivith the Slums (valuable for personal aspects of politics). 
Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 22 and 23, Typical Conflicts of 

Interest in the State). 
Woods, R. A. The City Wilderness (a socialeconomist's point of view). 



CHAPTER VIII 

PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EVERY human being is a member of several kinds of political societies. 
Except for literary purposes, there can be no such thing as a "man 
without a country." Many adults, as well as all children, are denied the 
privilege of voting or otherwise helping direct the political groups to which 
they belong; but all these are held to obedience to the laws and represen- 
tatives of the political group among whom they live and work. Every 
well informed adult has, therefore, sufficient "political experience" upon 
which to base reasonably full answers to the questions below : 

1. Of what help is the "nation" to you? What help are you to it? Of 
what use is the non-voter ? Does the recent immigrant usually give or receive 
most from the United States ? The millionaire ? The tramp ? The poor man 
with large family? Do you help support the navy? Do you affect our diplo- 
matic relations? Does your subscription to a daily newspaper in any way 
affect the nation? In what ways does it appear that you could directly help 
the nation if you had time and a bit more of "will"? 

2. What specific kinds of education are now usually given children in order 
to make them (o) more appreciative of, (&) more obedient toward, and (c) 
more disposed to serve their city? Their state? Their country? Discuss 
separately for age-levels six to nine; nine to twelve; twelve to fifteen; fifteen 
to eighteen; eighteen to twenty-two; Americanization of adults? 

What have you heard of the civic or patriotic education of children or 
youths among: the Germans of the last two decades; the French; the Atheni- 
ans of the age of Pericles; the knights of medieval chivalry; the Chinese? 

3. What seems long to have been the primary social purpose of "the nation" 
or state as a social group? Why did its leaders, controlling class, or majority 
assume the right to coerce others into paying taxes, serving in armies, 
obeying laws? Interpret sociologically the preamble to our Constitution: 
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty," 
etc. Enumerate a score of specific functions now discharged by our national 
government along the lines of these general aspirations. Which are steadily 
increasing? Which cost the most money? 

lOZ 



102 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

4. Of the following forms of political grouping, which seem to you now 
obsolete, obsolescent, static, or dynamic, as respects political functioning : the 
village; the city-state (Athens, Rome) ; the rural town (New England type) ; 
the constitutional monarchy or kingdom; the modern chartered , city ; the 
American state ; the county, borough, or chartered province ; the incorpo- 
rated town or small city (American) ; the empire (Great Britain, Japan, 
Turkey) ; the republic? 

5. What are the aspirations of "internationalists"? Are there real evils in 
the amounts of "nationalism" now cherished in each strong country by fervent 
patriots? What have we probably to hope for from "leagues" or other 
mechanisms of cooperation among nations? 

6. What do you consider to be the primary obligation of a nation to its 
individual members? What are secondary or derivative obligations? Is it 
more important that the nation, as a collective group, should support and 
provide education than that it should support and provide military defense? 

7. What are racial, governmental, and other characteristics of nations that 
are on the one hand formidable toward other nations, and at the same time 
are much cherished in the patriotic affections of their own citizens ? Consider 
both historic and contemporary examples. 

8. What are the essential characteristics of weak nations? Consider both 
historic and contemporary examples. 

9. In view of historical conditions, does it seem right and necessary that 
the governing authorities in a nation, or, more correctly, the majorities or 
the dominating minor groups that control, should coerce members who are 
not willing to meet their assigned responsibilities? Separately consider such 
matters as : the forcible imprisonment of criminals ; the conscription of soldiers 
in time of need; enforced taxation; right of eminent domain over land for 
public use ; compulsory school attendance ; compulsory vaccination ; enforced 
retention within the union of objecting minorities (Southern States after the 
Civil War, Polish Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine, Porto Rico, Egypt) ? 

ID. What are the advantages to a full-fledged citizen of a nation of his 
membership in that group ? Separately consider : men with much property ; 
men with no property; young men just starting out in life; and others. 

II. Analyze your experiences during twenty-four hours in order to ascertain 
interrelations with state in such respects as : 

a. The laws of the state to which you have yielded obedience — clearly con- 
scious, or unconsciously habitual. 

h. The laws of the state to which the submission of others has made for 
your security and efficiency. 

c. The active intervention of state's executives — police, teachers, soldiers, 
inspectors — on your behalf. 

d. Your contributions of money — directly as taxes, or indirectly through 
rent, prices, etc. — ^to support of the machinery of the state. 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 103 

e. Your contributions of service to the state. 

12. Restate your answers, to cover a year; a life-time. 

13. Where is the center of the "state" in America — in the national, the 
(provincial) state, or the municipal organization? What are fundamental dif- 
ferences betw^een an American state (province) and municipality as regards 
sovereignty ? 

14. In America is the "state" or the "Federal Union" the primary sov- 
ereign state authority? 

15. In what respects are we looking to the state (the "government") for 
actual or potential help in ways unfamiliar to our forefathers? Specify 
under such heads as: education; relief of poverty; inspection of foods, 
clothing, land titles, insurance; relief from housing stringencies; protection 
of children; sanitation; regulation of traffic; stabilizing of money values; 
protection of local industries; compensation for accidents; control of rates 
of charges for transport and gas ; etc. 

16. "The modern state tends to cramp, if not crush, the individual." Illus- 
trate from the standpoint, in peace time, of: a youth; an active business 
man, handling large capital; an artistic vagrant; a free-thinking radical. 
Same, from standpoint of acute war-time needs. Same, in Prussia, 1914; 
Japan; China; Egypt; Ireland. 

17. "The modern state stifles initiative." Illustrate from the standpoint 
of inyentors ; business enterprises ; free-lovers ; fiction writers ; cinema pro- 
ducers. 

18. "The modern state represents the highest achievement of civilization 
in the evolution of agencies for promotion of 'life more abundantly' or 
social well-being." Criticize. 

NATIONS AND PROVINCES 

In the evolution of societies it has been no easy task for men to form 
very large organizations extending over great areas. ^ Natural instincts 
give us little interest in, and generally even less liking for, those human 
beings who live far from us, whom we have never seen, who are not 
related to us, and whose ways of life are probably very different from 
ours. We are very easily led to believe that they would, if they could, 
deprive us of some of the goods of life, even to the extent of inflicting 
actual damage or even ruin on us. 

Barbaric stages of social evolution exhibit several devices for uniting 

large numbers of local groups, each but slightly acquainted with the others. 

The one most familiar to readers of early recorded history is that of 

^A very suggestive analysis is given in W. Bagehot, Physics and Politics (Ch. 3 
and 4, Nation-Making). Consult also C. Kelsey, The Physical Basis of Society 
(Ch. 7, Race Diflterences). 



I04 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

reviving and keeping alive, in times of danger from without, traditions 
of kinship and common ancestry. The legends of Romulus and Remus, 
and of Abraham, are duplicated amongst nearly all early peoples seeking 
consolidations for defense or for aggressive expansions. The "ancestor 
worship" of Orientals and the theocracies of early Egyptians, Assyrians, 
Greeks, and Norsemen doubtless have evolved and strengthened as prac- 
tical means of holding scattered peoples into some sort of unity. 

Under pressure of threatened war, primitive tribes often formed con- 
federacies; but these unions of jealous and competing local groups seldom 
stood the disrupting strains of peace. A large part of early literature 
recounts mournfully the evils of local dissensions in the face of invasion 
and conquest. Men of prophetic vision, such as the seers, singers, and 
orators often were, could appreciate the wickedness of intertribal and 
even interclan jealousies and vendettas to which ordinary minds were 
blind. Not the least picturesque examples of this disunion are found in 
the history of the North American Indians since 1600. 

Conquest seems to lie at the bottom of all early civilizations — but con- 
quest of a particular character.^ Wars seem always to have prevailed 
between different groups of mankind. Often such wars resulted in the 
utter destruction of the defeated — men, women, and children. But under 
other conditions only fighting men were killed, the women and children 
being preserved as booty for the victors. Doubtless only invaders with 
a relatively high degree of organization could take the more advanced 
and profitable step of saving the able-bodied men as slaves — a method that 
survived widely until very recent years, and even yet recurs under the 
pressure of international wars over large areas. 

But conquest, which leaves largely intact the economic and other non- 
governmental institutions of the conquered, seems to be a late product 
of social evolution, and perhaps then only under the specially favorable 
geographic conditions provided by the great river-valleys — Nile, 
Euphrates, Hoang-Ho, Ganges — or by the peninsulas, islands, and other 
somewhat insulated regions of which Greece, Italy, England, Korea, Pales- 
tine, and central Mexico are the best examples. Conquest of this character, 
obviously, gives greatest material profits to the conquerors, since they 
are thus enabled, whilst keeping the subjugated in a state of high produc- 
tivity, to divert to themselves large shares of tribute, taxes, controlled 
trade, and conscripted soldiers and other workers. No doubt the material 
gains and social prestige thus won have often been purchased by con- 
querors at the price of their own eventual loss of virility, purity of race, 

^ Read F. Oppenheim, The State (Ch. 3, The Primitive Feudal State). 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 105 

and even command ; but the full significance of these processes is com- 
monly not appreciated by the beneficiaries of conquest, and they are still 
very obscure, even to sociologists. 

Conquest and subjugation of these higher kinds still aflfect larger por- 
tions of mankind and give rise to incessant friction. We can think of 
Scotland, Wales, Sicily, Saxony, Transvaal, South Carolina, and Hawaii as 
examples of conquered peoples readily assimilating into the national groups 
of their conquerors, and so gradually achieving to a state of provincial 
fraternity. The Philippines, Ireland, India, and numberless supposedly 
ethnic groups in Europe and Asia think of themselves still as "partners" 
under duress — as "suppressed or submerged nationalities." Some of their 
leaders desire to have their people walk alone, even if at first they stumble. 
It is sometimes said that tropical peoples have never yet achieved complete 
self-government — certainly not democratic self-government — as have 
peoples of the temperate or even colder latitudes.^ The effects of climate 
on human energy may be such that for many generations yet they can not 
expect to do so. 

The effects of government founded on conquest have been of pro- 
foundest importance in the evolution of civilization during the last ten 
thousand years.^ Conquest made possible- the existence of nationalistic, 
or at any rate of imperialistic, groups on very large scales, and sometimes 
of great durability. (A nation is to be known, of course, chiefly through 
i'ts discharge of national functions of defense, administration of justice, 
internal organization,, etc. By these tests the Roman and British empires 
are nations no less than Holland, the United States, or Japan.) A con- 
quering class, achieving its first victories under arms, must necessarily 
become a governing class, or lose the fruits of domination. The mechan- 
isms of control thus set up lend themselves easily, also, to the marshaling 
of forces against outside enemies whose subjugation may either remove 
a danger, or enhance the possessions, of the victors. Conquest thus 
becomes an archangel or archdevil (according to individual valuations), 
growing powerful by what it feeds on. For sociological purposes it makes 
little difference whether we see it led by a central figure — Alexander, 
Csesar, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Cortes, CHve, Napoleon, 
or Bismarck — or by an aristocracy of chiefs evolving into an oligarchy 
of patricians, as in early Greece and Rome, the Norman invasions, and 
the feudal evolutions in Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. 

^ See E. Huntington, Civilization and Climate; A. Mahan, Sea Power in History; 
H. H. Powers, Things Men Fight For. 

*F. Oppenheim, The State (Ch. 4, The Maritime State, and Ch. 5, The Develop- 
ment of the Feudal State). 



io6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

The outstanding facts are, after provisions have been made against 
external enemies, the upbuilding of relatively impersonal mechanisms 
for the promotion of internal harmony and efficiency. These include 
especially: the administration of justice; the clarification of property 
rights ; the rectification of religion — suppression or toleration as the 
conquerors deem expedient, of course; and the promotion of internal 
improvements — roads', irrigation systems, means of defense, even facilities 
for trade, and finally education and other means of unification. But the 
inevitable counterpart tendencies are those making for various forms of 
suppression and destruction. Out of thousands of years of sociological 
welter the modern nations have formed or are still forming ; but the good 
and the evil of conquest as means of social evolution can as yet be only 
very imperfectly appraised. 

Modern democracy strives to conserve the goods of the ages of con- 
quest, and to eliminate the evils. It finds that the systems of land-owner- 
ship and tenure of Great Britain, Mexico, and central Europe are largely 
the products of outright seizures by strong invaders. Castes, aristocracies, 
courts, and leisure classes are the survivals, often now degenerate and 
diseased, of once proud, and frequently beneficent, defenders and gov- 
ernors. The predatory instincts of men, denied local play by strong 
internal social control, now often mass themselves behind nationalistic 
aspirations. Notwithstanding the free flow of knowledge and of some 
social intercourse, as well as the carefully braked movement of com- 
modities across tarifif-walled national borders, barriers of differences of 
language, customs, and sovereign sensibilities still operate to keep nations, 
the largest of well organized social groups, not only far aloof from each 
other, but often in a state of potential hostility of the most destructive 
sort.^ 

ORIGINS ^ 

The nation as a social group owes its origin chiefly to the needs of 
defense against other social groups. The nation is first of all the creature 
of warfare, and becomes in turn the chief agency of warfare. Within a 
given area, and subject to the aggression of other peoples, a strong co- 
operating group secures the voluntary, or forces the involuntary, sub- 
jection' of other groups in order to have the largest possible force where- 
with to resist enemies. In times of peace it becomes the function of the 
leaders in such a group to set their house in order against the next time 

"^ F. Oppenheim, The State (Ch. 6, The Constitutional State). 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 107 

of danger. To this end, justice must be so administered as to prevent 
internal frictions from destroying the strength of the group, highways 
and harbors must be built, and other public improvements encouraged. 
Trade with other nations, as well as within the nation itself, must be 
fostered. Some, perhaps all, of the young citizens must be given educa- 
tion in order to' make them more effective cooperators. It may even pay 
liberally to encourage religion, art, invention, and exploration as a means 
of making the group stronger. Thus arise modern nations, which, 
with modern municipalities, are the most dynamic of social groups at the 
present time. 

The individual in the nation develops as a resultant of more or less 
opposed forces.® The nation, through whatever governmental agencies 
it has, claims his obedience, his services, and his good will. It compels 
him to conform to the law, to pay his taxes, and, if necessary, to serve in 
its armies. It may even compel him to attend school, to submit to vaccina- 
tion, and to yield up his property. 

On the other hand, within the nation each individual strives for more 
of freedom, property, and opportunity to develop his personality in other 
p'roup relations. Some nations excessively coerce many of their indi- 
vidual, members. Some nations become dangerously weak because of 
their inability to exact from some or all individual members the support 
or service needed for security and strength. 

'The community functions discharged by the agencies of the national 
group tend greatly to multiply under modern conditions. The primary 
function of the nation through its government was once to secure de- 
fense against external enemies. The second important function was the 
administration of internal justice, including the exercise of police power 
sufficient to maintain order. Within historic times the nation has proved 
the most effective agency for the regulating of currency and other medi- 
ums of exchange, the fixing of weights and measures, the maintenance 
of lighthouses and other aids to commerce, the transmission of mails, and 
the exercise of quarantine. Nations now add various other functions, 
such as the regulation of banking, the fostering of education, the dis- 
semination of scientific information, the operation of railroads, and in 
a variety of ways the promotion and regulation of commerce. 

International competition is one of the large tragic factors of the 
modern civilized order.''' Within the national group the various kinds of 

"Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. H. : Ethics (Ch. 21, Civil Society and the Political 
State). 

' For very suggestive analysis see H. H. Powers, The Things Men Fight For 
(Ch. I and 2, Tangible and Intangible Things). 



io8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

competition that naturally arise between individuals, between classes of 
individuals, and even between cities and states, are so ordered that mu- 
tually destructive conflicts are avoided. As between nations various kinds 
of competition always prevail. From time to time these flare up into the 
tremendously destructive conflicts called war. 

War becomes, within limits, a stimulus to the more effective organiza- 
tion of the national group, and is frequently the final test of the strength 
of that group. Where it becomes the conscious policy of many citizens 
deliberately to seek national strength against a day of conflict, not only 
are the actual instruments of that potential conflict prepared and kept 
ready, but the more basic conditions of strength achieved through the 
maintenance of order and public good will, the promotion of general 
education, the fostering of economic production, and even the encour- 
agement of- invention and scientific research are all made matters of 
purposive national policy. 

The strength of a nation is frequently enhanced by various types of 
homogeneity, including racial, linguistic, and cultural types. ^ There 
are some examples of strong nations with ethnic and even linguistic di- 
visions — for example, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, and South Africa. 
Often the assumption of a common ethnic origin operates as a unifying 
influence. Most of the problems of socializing the less well developed 
nations of the modern world are due to diversities of ethnic elements, 
languages, and cultures found in such quasi-nationalistic groupings as 
Turkey, India, the Balkan States, Hungary, and the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland.^ 

Nationalistic groupings serve several functions in human society, be- 
sides being the sources of the collective activities called government. 
Nations or states serve, at their best, to give sense of community or com- 
monwealth to ethnic peoples — that is, peoples apparently related through 
long intermarrying ancestry. (Ethnology does not find "pure" races to 
any extent. Racial intermixtures have taken place so often that even 
supposedly unblended peoples like the Jews, the Scandinavians, or the 
Arabs prove to be racially very composite.) They often serve as prac- 
ticable areas for the evolution of culture, including languages and litera- 
tures. Under modern conditions they also serve well as areas within 
which practically unrestricted economic interchange of products may take 
place. 

"See C. A. Beard, American Citizenship (Part I, Human Needs and the Govern- 
ment). 
"J. Bryce, South America (Ch. ii, The Rise of New Nations). 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 109 

Historic instances are many. The Roman and British empires, in- 
volving little indeed of ethnic or economic unities, nevertheless have 
promoted certain degrees of cultural unification. The United States, 
Great Britain, modern Germany, Italy, and France show results of 
unification of great importance, probably, to human welfare in general. 
Some small and compact nations, flourishing under the invisible and 
perhaps unintended protectorates of nations sovereign in fact as well as 
semblance, — of which Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Cuba, Rou- 
mania, and Afghanistan occur as examples, — seem sources of great good 
to their own citizens, whilst their values to the world at large — to the com- 
munity of nations — may be less certain. 

The support of government is, of course, the supreme purpose of 
nationalist groupings — government that, historically, is organized first 
"to provide for the common defense," second "to insure domestic tran- 
quillity," third "to establish justice," and fourth "to promote the gen- 
eral welfare." ^° For these purposes the nation — or its provincial sub- 
divisions — almost invariably demands submission, compliance, and support 
from every person within its borders ; and it gives to all whom its con- 
trolling elements think expedient the privilege of sharing in councils, 
legislation, and administration. 

To the political scientist must be left the task of defining sovereignty 
and the other attributes of statehood, and of showing how, in the highly 
complex nationalities that social evolution produces from time to time, 
these functions are distributed and balanced. 

To the sociologist, nations or sovereign states are simply social groups 
into which human beings form themselves in response to external presstires 
and internal impulses toward cohesion. The obvious first condition is 
regional contiguity of men, so that all of a certain area are forced to 
belong to the group. Like other groups, nations may bring much net 
good or net harm to their members, or to some of them; and they may 
also bring good or evil to other groups or to their members. Some 
peoples have prospered, temporarily at least, with their nationalistic 
functions almost suspended. But, in view of the innate truculency, pre- 
daceousness, and envy of men, it is hard to see how any of the sub- 
stantial modern achievements of mankind could have been realized except 
behind the visible or invisible walls set up as governments by strong, 
self-conscious, and self-respecting states. 

Nevertheless, nationalism may well become anti-social in its net efifects, 
as may the social cohesiveness or egotism of any other group from the 

^" C. H. Cooley, Social Organisation (Ch. 35, Government as Public Will). 



no EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

family to a religious denomination. A nationalism that unduly burdens 
or represses many, either of the men, women, or children within the 
nation, or the normal action of those other groupings that promote the 
social good, is, of course, anti-social in final results. Numberless historic 
instances of what thus seems to be a tyranny of the state will occur to any 
well informed reader. Again, a nation may behave oppressively and 
tyrannically toward other nations — as many nations have done and are 
probably yet doing. 

There are those who believe that on the material side the boundaries, 
and on the social side the self-centered patriotism, of modern nations 
interfere seriously with the best interests of men and women as these 
are extended by modern science, ready intercommunication, and mutu- 
ality of economic needs. Especially do they think that this is true where 
areas not geographically extensive, like Europe, and South and Central 
America, are divided amongst many nations among whom cooperation 
is obstructed by differences of speech, race, economic interests, or popular 
antagonisms. Hence the appeal made especially to generous spirits by 
proposals for closer international cooperations that shall not only prevent 
war (it is hoped), but shall lessen the frictions of exchanges of all sorts 
— commodities, knowledge, and social intercourse. 

The social efficiency of national groupings may be evaluated, notwith- 
standing the great technical obstacles to be encountered. We must not 
overlook the fact that nations are at present among the most vital of 
social groupings. Patriotism is one of the most intense, uniform, and 
commanding of popular sentiments in nations like the United States, 
Japan, France, Switzerland, and Denmark. These sentiments are often 
quiecent in times of peace ; but danger or even popular aspirations easily 
fan them into a white flame, due in part to the ages of popular — and 
often extra-school — education that have shaped specific appreciations, 
ideals, and beliefs out of the plastic metals of self-preservative and self- 
aggrandizing instincts of men. 

Nations with little centripetal patriotism seem usually wanting also in 
vital qualities making for strong internal cohesion, order, or progress. 
Peoples without intense national affiliations often seem despoiled of some 
qualities socially very precious. 

But within every nation there proceeds a constant ferment of political 
interaction among party groups. The fundamental ostensible object of 
all internal conflict over matters political is the improved functioning 
of government — including under that term, of course, the diminution 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS iii 

of governmental control or operation where that seems to restrict free- 
dom or other opportunities of individuals or other groups. 

In any dynamic modern state (and the same has been substantially 
true throughout history) the social efficiency of government is being in- 
cessantly challenged and evaluated. The national efficiency of any state 
can therefore be taken as a kind of resultant of its traditional govern- 
ment and the modifications of that government efifectively promoted from 
time to time. 

Numberless specific tests of such efficiency are incessantly under con- 
sideration. Does our nation assure to you and to me as individuals 
security of life, family, property, reputation? Does it establish justice, 
liberty, democracy? Does it insure domestic tranquillity? Does it do 
well those operations whose character forces them to become forms of 
public service — keeping of lighthouses, quarantine against plague, upkeep 
of streets and highways, provision of water, inspection of foodstuffs, 
conservation of forests, direction of education? We endlessly debate as 
to whether the state, through its imperial, federal, national, provincial, 
or municipal members, should promote colonization, censor the drama, 
endow the fine arts, operate railways, undertake housing, subsidize dis- 
advantaged industries, establish obligatory insurance, or support medical 
service. 

Democratic tendencies have greatly modified the forms, though not 
always the spirit, taken by the internal organization of nation or state. 
The political scientist erects various classifications such as absolute mon- 
archies, limited or constitutional monarchies, republics, and the like. A 
large and complex nation created by necessities of defense or conquest, 
and composed chiefly of individuals lacking in education or political ex- 
perience, will, perhaps unavoidably, be governed autocratically or oli- 
garchically — even as Egypt, Java, Korea, and even in a measure Hayti, 
are governed to-day. The appearance of substantial numbers of educated 
and steady citizens sooner or later forces the acceptance by monarchical 
authorities of some form of constitutional limitation of powers — Magna 
Charta or other. Inevitably this accompanies or precedes the evolution 
of more or less representative legislative bodies, expansions of suffrage, 
and increase of interests directly represented in government, which now 
take place in the evolution of republican institutions. The soviet principle 
— that of having representatives sent forward by economic rather than 
territorial groups — is now very much on trial. In principle it is not 
entirely new, of course. The English House of Lords has historically 



112 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

been representative of certain interests essentially economic or sumptuary, 
rather than geographical ; and even in the House of Commons the alumni 
of the old universities have long had their special representatives. 

The community of nations is, also, a reality to the sociologist, as it 
has been at various times historically, and is increasingly so to the mod- 
ern social conscience. Often have nations contemptuously asked, "Am 
I my brother's keeper?" International law, often vague and wanting in 
some of the sanctions of sovereignty, nevertheless does interpose some 
limits to the dispositions of nations to profit at one another's expense. 
Monroe Doctrines and alliances tend to become more constructive. Treat- 
ies and tariffs tend to become more humane, perhaps more in accordance 
with the standards of local social action. The unfortified 3000-mile 
boundary between the United States and Canada is of no less contempo- 
rary social significance than fortified Gibraltar or Panama. 

PROBLEMS OF NATIONALISM ^^ 

A. Nations, like municipalities, represent, as has been said, the most 
dynamic and vital of contemporary political groupings of men. Because 
the nation is the organization into which men unite to defend their^lives, 
property, and various liberties, intense feeling is readily aroused on its 
behalf. The municipal group may greatly affect our comfort and enlist 
our respect, but a thousand deep emotions cluster around nationality as 
the safeguard of life and other basic things of worth. Patriotism is the 
foundation not only of national solidarity, but also of potentially strong 
antagonisms toward other nations — antagonisms that easily flare into war. 

But intense nationalism necessitates various factors working for homo- 
geneity — racial, religious, economic, cultural, and other. Force of con- 
quest or threat of outside danger may create alliances, federations, or 
states out of peoples discordant as to many qualities that count for much 
in times of peace. An imperial organization such as the British Empire, 
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or even that American organization which 
includes Porto Rico and the Philippines, is perpetually confronted by 
the pressure of annexed nationalities to secede. It was long uncertain 
whether "these American states" were to be thirteen or "more nations, 
or only one unified nation. 

The problem of discordant, seceding, or suppressed nationalities would 
be simple if it were not for the modern expansion of mutual economic 

"For very suggestive reflections see H. G. Wells, Social Forces in England and 
America (pp. 112-155, The Great State). 



PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNITY GROUPS 113 

and other interests. Backward nations or potential nationalities can not 
confine to their own peoples the evils of misgovernment. Ignorance, 
wasteful production, unsanitary living, prevalent superstitions, excessive 
toleration of vice, in one nation inevitably spread their bad results to 
others. Irf some instances imperial and in others international social 
economy strives incessantly to reconcile the conflicting conditions. Here 
lie, obviously, some of the most extensive and perplexing problems with 
which civilized men must wrestle during the next few centuries. All the 
tropical regions of the world, as well as the entire center of Eurasia, are 
occupied by peoples that have realized or aspired to a more or less dis- 
turbed nationalism which, good or bad for the nationalists, is all too 
frequently a source of harm and infection to neighboring, or even remote, 
stable nations. 

B. "Patriotism is not enough," said Nurse Cavell on the eve of her 
execution in Belgium. The problems of "internationalism" promise to 
be more and more insistent during the next few decades. There are, 
first, the problems of defining desirable objectives for international treaties, 
agreements, or laws, and of making these effective. 

But far more formidable are the problems of determining to what 
extent -any nation entering into international relationships can afford to 
forego its own liberty of action, its material interests, or in a word, its 
"sovereignty." Without mutual concessions, international arrangements 
are, of course, devoid of substantial significance. But concessions that 
are contracts for future action are apt to be made by democratic govern- 
ments with insufficient appreciation of their future consequences, and of 
the difficulties of having democracies live up to their pledges. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

1. What are the probable future relationships of government to industry? 
See H. Clay, Economics (Ch. 21-22, The State and Economic Organiza- 
tion) ; and H. C. Adams, Description of Industry (Ch. 14, Govern- 
ment and Industry). 

2. What is meant by "American Imperialism"? See C. R. Fisk, The 
Path of Empire (in "Yale Chronicle Series"). 

3. What are the aims of Americanization See E. A. Ross, The Old 
World in the New (Ch. 2, Immigrants in Politics). 

4. Illustrate effects on "nation-making" of geographical conditions. See 
E. C. Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment (Ch. 6, Geo- 
graphical Area). 



114 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

5. What are current problems of the nationalization of education? (See 
Keith and Bagley, The Nation and the Schools). 

6. Sociological aspects of international relations. See C. H. Cooley, 
Social Process (Ch. 23, Social Control of International Relations). 

7. Describe recent stages in British Imperialism. See A. C. Turberville, 
Great Britain in the Latest Age (Ch. 1-3, Landmarks in Recent His- 
tory). 

8. Consult Giddings, F., Principles (Ch. 4, Bk. Ill, Demogenic Associa- 
tion, esp. sect. II). 

9. See also Small, A. W., General Sociology (Ch. 19-21, Antagonisms in 
States). 



CHAPTER IX 
ECONOMIC GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

ALL of US are utilizers of economic goods — food, shelter, fire, books, 
and protection. Almost all normal, and not yet very aged, adults 
are producers of these goods. For our purposes it is well to include a 
very wide range of commodities and services as economic goods — hence 
the term shall be assumed to cover not merely grain, coal, automobiles, 
and houses, but also dental service, the writing of poetry, the defense 
given by the soldier, and the effort put forth by the legislator. The teacher 
renders a useful service— and is paid for it in the services, or the prod- 
ucts of the service, of others. Let it, too, be included among the economic 
goods by which societies support themselves. 

All that we consume is somehow and somewhere paid for. We live 
in the midst of stored wealth. Our parents were, almost invariably, capi- 
talists' to a degree. We can not move in the modern world without 
having an eye to economic conditions. Problems of economic adjust- 
ment beset us on every hand. Many varieties of our education are now 
determined, directly or indirectly, by economic considerations. 

Nearly all your economic relationships are social — that is, they affect 
other human beings besides yourself. You buy a cloak, thereby affecting 
the welfare not merely of the clerk and store proprietor from whom you 
purchased, but back of them scores and hundreds of wholesalers, trans- 
porters, manufacturers, designers, shepherds, landowners, and number- 
less others. We can not even take fish from the sea or game from the 
forest without using tools that it has taken ages to evolve. 

Every citizen knows far more about the answers to the questions sub- 
mitted below than at first he would believe : 

1. Trace the geographic sources of the original raw materials of a score 
of articles which you now regularly use — coal, wood, graphite, silk cloth, tea, 
etc. By what means have you come to have command over these goods — the 
right to use them as you see fit? How have the producers benefited through 
you? 

2. Show that Robinson Crusoe used a large part of the world's social 
inheritance of arts and knowledge in his adjustments to the island environ- 
ment. How had he paid his debts for all this? 

3. Why do men form partnerships? What are the usual economic co- 
operations of husband and wife on a farm? When do children frequently 

115 



ii6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

become part-producers of goods — on a frontier live-stock farm, in a small 
grocery store, in a "sweat-shop" feather factory? Is it probable that for 
thousands of centuries our forerunners have captured wild beasts and fought 
other men in "pack" formation? Compare the "gang" with a wolf pack as 
to cooperations. Show how fishing, mining, building (on any large scale), 
fabricating by power-driven machinery, and exploration all necessitate team- 
work. 

4. Trace early stages of "master and servant" or "employer-employee" 
relationships. Are these dictated primarily by economic considerations? 
Under what conditions is slavery advantageous to slaves ? To masters ? How 
are hereditary "classes" of servants and masters formed? Under present con- 
ditions what determines that one shall employ another ? That one shall be 
employed by another? Analyze your own experiences as employee. Why 
did you become such ? Why remain such ? Do you employ dentists, waitresses, 
locomotive engineers? Individually or jointly? 

Can you name certain classes of men in modern life who regularly employ 
others but are not "employees" themselves? What proportion of youths, 
from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, not in school, are not employees 
of some one? What are generally the reciprocal economic interests of em- 
ployer and employee served by that relationship ? Is it true that their interests 
are antagonistic? Or identical? Why is it so often a strained relationship? 

5. One group of workers in Pittsburgh produces steel, but no bread; another 
in Minnesota produces wheat and bread, but no steel. Trace the processes 
of exchange, including transportation, by which they reinforce each other's 
economic power. Should buyers-sellers, including original producers (or "ex- 
changers" in the broad sense), be regarded as always constituting one kind 
of social group ? What, then, are your economic relationships with Penn- 
sylvania coal-miners, Brazilian coffee-growers, transatlantic seamen, street-car 
motormen? Do all these help your economic welfare? How do you help 
theirs ? 

Why has the modern world evolved so much "territorial specialization" of 
production? Why does the United States not produce coffee, silk, diamonds, 
rubber, nickel ? What do we give in exchange for these ? Is it well for 
the people of West Virginia to specialize so largely in coal, oil, and gas pro- 
duction? For the South 'to specialize in raw cotton? For New York City 
in ready-made clothing? What are some socially pathological effects of such 
specialization? 

Which are the more "useful" producers to society — wheat-growers or coffee- 
growers ? Clothing-makers or tobacco-growers ? Teachers or beef-growers ? 
Preachers or diamond-miners ? Coal-miners or physicians ? How do you 
derive your standards ? 

6. Does it seem probable that, historically, men have been more moved 
to exploration, migration, or conquest by Quest for food and other material 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 117 

"goods," than by religion, pursuit of pure knowledge, desire for freedom, 
or desire for justice? 

Why do not large numbers of men live in Labrador, the Amazon Valley, 
or the Sahara ? Why do nearly half of mankind live "under the monsoons" ? 
Why do famines frequently recur in China, India, Russia? Why do they 
never occur in crov^^ded Massachusetts, central England, Belgium? Is the 
obtaining of a livelihood the chief concern of peoples in crov^ded areas? 
Has the desire for more land caused many wars? Did it cause the Great 
War ? What is meant by "economic determinism" ? 

7. How have man's economic powers been increased by: domestication of 
animals; discovery of iron; invention of the reaper; discovery of mineral 
oil; use of steam power? If in fifty years the population of a country 
doubles, and the average standard of living rises 50 per cent., what increase 
in net productivity will be necessary? How much higher is your "standard 
of living," probably, than that of a corresponding person one hundred 
years ago? (Include transportation, printed matter, commercial entertain- 
ment, medical service, pictures, music, daily news, security from Indians, 
fountain pens, college facilities, and the like among "goods for consumption.) 
Are we more crowded than our ancestors ? 

8. Probably one half the "productive work" of the United States is car- 
ried on by corporations. What proportions, respectively, of mining, trans- 
portation, farming, home-making, teaching, manufacturing, do you estimate, 
to be thus carried on? The corporation represents one of the most highly 
developed forms of cooperation. Cooperation in what? Toward what? 
Who form the corporation? For what purposes? Who control it? By 
what means? 

What are the usual relations of corporations to society at large? To 
employees? "Specialization of production" and the "growing complexity 
of tools" are said to force the development of corporations. Is this probably 
true? Can employees now become stockholders in corporations? Can bond- 
holders ever control them? 

9. The economic relationships between: partners; parents and children; 
farmer and hired man; mistress and maid; teacher and pupil; small mer- 
chant and customer; and farmer and blacksmith — are often accompanied 
by close friendship and social intimacies — that is, they are more or less 
personal. 

But those between: corporation president and operatives; Massachusetts 
mill workers and Texas cotton-growers; department-store clerk and cus- 
tomers; train passengers and locomotive engineers; and guests and hotel 
servants — tend to be impersonal, even if sometimes more effective in the 
strictly economic sense. Is this "impersonality" of economic relationships 
largely inevitable under modern conditions? Are some of its consequences 
disagreeable, pathological? Can conditions be improved? 



ii8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



ORIGINS OF ECONOMIC GROUPS ^ 

Getting a living is the primary business of all organic things, the first 
means of self-preservation. Plants usually live upon nutrition derived 
from the soil, from other plants, or sometimes from animals. Coopera- 
tive organisations toward economic production are formed by many plant 
and animal species for exactly the same reasons that they are formed 
for defense or maintenance of progeny. Among the social products 
of evolution, therefore, we must count a large variety of group forms 
and processes designed and functioning, consciously or unconsciously, 
to enhance control of the goods wherewith life is to be sustained — economic 
resources, wealth, productive goods. 

Competition and conflict for economic goods is, obviously, a basic fact 
in nearly all forms of life. Nearly all organic species tend to increase 
much faster than their means of available subsistence. Sharp rivalries 
take place, first between members of the same species, and second, between 
members of different species. Cooperative groupings, including those 
relationships that make for division of labor, exchange of products, and 
use of accumulated wealth as capital, naturally evolve. The products 
of these evolutionary processes among some insects, birds, and mammals 
are of great interest. But it is among men that cooperative provision of 
tools, accumulation of knowledge, division of labor, and storing of capital 
— wealth used to produce wealth — have proceeded farthest. 

Men knit together by kinship or joined together for defense, sociability, 
play, or worship, often use the connections thus formed to promote 
economic ends — that is, the getting, exchange, or using of material goods 
and service. The cooperations thus established, not being primarily 
for economic purposes, are not true economic groupings, which are only 
those formed primarily for joint production, transport, exchange, and 
utilization of wealth or material goods. 

Social groupings primarily for economic purposes are omnipresent in 
the social environments created by civilization. Partnerships, corpora- 
tions, unions of manual workers, and associations of employers are of 
many kinds. Nearly every individual, especially in the earlier years of 
manhood, now willingly engages in work as the employee of some person 
or corporation — including under the latter municipality or nation. A 
very large proportion of men stand in quite definite relations toward 

^ E. B. Tylor. Primitive Culture (Ch. 8-11, Arts of Life) ; H. Spencer, Principles 
of Sociology (Ch. 8, Industrial Institutions) ; W. G. Sumner, Folkways (Ch. 4, 
Labor, Wealth). 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 119 

others as employers. In the broadest sense, indeed, each one of us is one 
of the cooperating employers of the mail-carriers, street-car drivers, 
waiters, policemen, clerks, and publishers who serve us; whilst, no 
less certainly, we are the employees, not only of those who pay us wages, 
but also of those who in other ways receive our services or products, and 
compensate us therefor. 

The relation of buyer to seller in the processes of exchange constitutes 
an economic grouping, sometimes very simple and transient, sometimes 
highly complex and enduring. These relations are often charged with 
strong personal feelings, but also they are frequently impersonal. "The 
white man draws no color line against the negro's dollar," says Booker 
Washington. Where men are brought into juxtaposition and certain 
kinds of interdependence by necessities of joint utilization, as in hotels, 
street cars, steamships, banks, stores, the resulting social relationships 
give groupings that may properly be called economic — some of which, 
again, are personal, and many of which are impersonal. 

The two basic sources of contemporary economic groupings are found 
in the advantages, first of division of labor and, second of large-scale 
operation.^ These advantages are realized in a measure even among 
various forms of animals. Ants and bees, beavers and crows, practise 
some kinds of specialization beyond that imposed through joint care of 
the young. Many animals cooperate in building, hunting, harvesting, 
and storing because of the gains accruing from collective effort. 

The exactions imposed on primitive man by hunting and fighting begot 
numberless forms of specialization and collective action. Women, chil- 
dren, and old or sick men took on other tasks than game-getting and war. 
But all specialization of production necessitates exchange of services or 
the products of service; and all joint production necessitates incessant 
mutual aid, coordination, toleration, and specialized direction and con- 
trol. Very plausible indeed is the contention that many of man's most 
human qualities (lovely and unlovely alike) are rooted in instincts evolved 
during the ten thousand generations when survival was conditioned on 
efficient "pack hunting." 

The economic order as we now know it expresses the progress of these 
two basic tendencies carried to world-wide proportions. Trade makes 
possible territorial division of labor. England exchanges its cotton goods 
for the coffee and bananas of South America. Virginia exchanges cig- 

" See E. C. Semple, Influence of Geographic Environment (Ch. 3, Society and the 
State in Relation to Land) ; H. C. Adams, Description of Industry (Ch. 5, Machin- 
ery in Industry). 



120 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

arettes for the oranges of Florida. Regions rich in coal or iron or gold 
send their products to the valleys that have no ores but that can produce 
foodstuffs from rich soils. The average man of the modern civilized state 
often consumes none, or only a fractional per cent., of his own product. 
Even the farmer now commonly sells from 90 to 100 per cent, of all 
that he raises. Each part of the surface of the globe tends increasingly 
to specialize in those products most favored by climate, soil, rock, waters, 
and transport. Only thus can the growing populations of Belgium, Eng- 
land, New York, Mississippi, Japan, and Argentina maintain their num- 
bers on the high planes of living that they now cherish. 

The processes of specialization sometimes require, and are often rein- 
forced by, the large-scale operations made possible through science, capital, 
technical leadership, storage, and wide markets. Cotton may be economi- 
cally (that is, advantageously) grown on a small scale, but economy 
in manufacture of its products necessitates large-scale operations. We 
find it hard to imagine transoceanic commerce, telegraphy, coal distribu- 
tion, or metropolitan newspaper publication being profitably carried on 
through small independent agencies. Many operations, such as canal- 
cutting, water storage, money coinage, highway building, and harbor 
construction, are so obviously in need of gigantic conception and execution 
that for thousands of years it has been practicable for such clumsy organi- 
zations as nations or municipalities to undertake them on the same, scale 
that they undertake their primary functions of defense. Everywhere 
around us we now witness that rapid and apparently inevitable munici- 
palization or nationalization of productive enterprise which we sometimes 
call state socialism. It has been estimated that more than half of all 
primary production, and even larger proportions of secondary production 
(transport and exchange), are now carried on by corporations, those 
wonderful modern agencies of large-scale cooperative effort. 

, MODERN DEVELOPMENT ^ 

The mechanical revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
in western Europe, America, and Japan has been the source of at least 
three profound social changes, the full effects of which are probably as 
yet only partly appreciated. It greatly increased the productivity of 

^ H. Clay, Economics (Ch. 3, The Organization of Industry) ; H. G. Wells, Social 
Forces (pp. 50-94, The Labor Movement ; pp. 281-7, An Age of Specialization) ; 
E. L. Bogart, The Economic History of the United States (Ch. 28, Manufacturing 
on a Large Scale) ; H. G. Wells, Outline of History (Ch. 39, The Mechanical 
Revolution) ; A. Pound, The Iron Man. 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 121 

human labor of both brain and muscle ; it greatly increased specializations 
of all kinds of service; and it made inevitable an enormous increase of 
stored wealth — that is, capital, both "fluid" and "frozen." 

Machines, such as locomotives, printing presses, plows, furnaces, sew- 
ing machines, and power-driven looms, saws, rock-drills, and harvesters, 
have multiplied the effectiveness of labor, partly by substituting natural 
for human energy, and partly by replacing crude processes by finer ones. 
Increased production has made possible a multiplication of human beings 
(something, of course, that has taken place also in India and China with- 
out much machinery) ; but it has also enabled these to maintain high 
standards of living, which has not been possible for Hindoos or Chinese. 

Machine-driven transport of commodities and information — by rail- 
roads, steamers, mails, and telegraph — have multiplied many thousand- 
fold that localization of production, beginnings of which date back thou- 
sands of years. Large portions of the earth's surface are now chiefly 
devoted, here to the raising of cotton, there to the growing of cofifee, 
yonder to the mining of coal. The manufacture of cotton goods centers 
in a few areas, and of locomotives in a half-dozen others. The well read 
person instantly associates one or two principal kinds of production 
only with Argentina, Westphalia, Alberta, Rhode Island, Newfoundland, 
Egypt, or Minnesota. We know that the social conditions of West Vir- 
ginia, Mississippi, central England, Brazil, or Indo-China are governed 
largely by the kinds of wealth these regions produce. 

Machines are tools representing a large storage of wealth. One girl in a 
factory may operate several thousand dollars' worth of weaving ma- 
chines. A locomotive driver operates a machine and train costing per- 
haps fifty thousand dollars. The system of water or gas mains for a 
city easily comes to represent millions of dollars of investment. Rail- 
road tracks, wharves, telegraph lines, warehouses, and opened mines 
represent stored wealth that is just as real as wheat kept for winter use, 
cloth set aside for future wear, or meats put in cold storage. 

Social consequences of many kinds, some good, some bad, flow from 
these economic changes, many of which have taken place with accelerated 
rapidity during the last half century. Per capita wealth — as possessions 
• — no less than per capita production have enormously increased among 
industrial peoples, including those speciaHzing in mining, building, and 
transport; probably it has also increased somewhat among agricultural 
peoples specializing in production for export — the growers of cotton, wool, 
wheat, coffee, rubber, corn, meats, and fruit. But these increases have 
not been felt proportionately by all classes or workers. Organizers and 



122 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

technical experts, sometimes in strict accordance with the operations of 
the law of supply and demand, and sometimes owing to its artificial sus- 
pension, have often reaped very large shares. Routine workers have not 
always gained, though it is seldom that their economic status, measured 
in terms of available good for present consumption or for reserve (invest- 
ment), has declined, from that of their corresponding predecessors in 
the same regions. 

But the mechanization of production has entailed on workers a large 
variety of psychological effects that are as yet ill understood. Subdivided 
and routine work has, obviously, been greatly increased. Opportunities 
for adding experience through the years in productive work, such as 
often came to hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or tiller of the soil, seem 
much diminished under at least certain types of highly mechanized proc- 
esses. It is asserted that "creative impulses" of the rank and file of 
workers are denied expression, or rather are specialized to a few in- 
dividuals, under modern factory, mine, and transport conditions.* 

The sociological facts underlying these allegations are yet very obscure; 
however, these common indictments of industrial civilization are doubt- 
less true as that affects some men, whilst perhaps the reverse is true as 
it affects others. It is certain, however, that modern conditions of primary 
production, and even more those of transport and exchange, tend toward 
impersonality of economic relationships. Probably the nature of man — ■ 
his basic instincts, impulses, and easily acquired attitudes — is ill suited 
to obtain satisfactions from these impersonal relationships. Primitive 
man imputed to the malignancy of invisible beings the ills of sickness, 
death, earthquake, and drought that overtook him. Modern man often 
tends in very much the same way to impute to the greed or malignancy 
of those agencies — railroads, banks, farmers, capitalists, "foreigners" — 
with whom he is in enforced cooperative relationships the ills of exces- 
sively high or low prices, scarcities, irregularities of work, and the like, 
which very frequently ^derive from natural causes. 

What is the force of economic determinism? It is certain that the 
form and functions of many kinds of social groups are determined to a 
large extent (over many generations, of course) by the conditions im- 
posed on their members through, first the urgent necessities, and second 
the less urgent satisfactions, of life. We commonly assume that "self- 
preservation" is the first law of nature. Self-preservation is achieved 
first by obtaining suiificient food and shelter, second through successful 
defense against enemies, and third through conservation of health. Of 

* See H. Marot, The Creative Impulse in Industry. 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 123 

these needs, that for food is usually the most ever-present and pervasive. 

Hence some students of human society hold that what social groups 
are to-day, and what they do, are more affected by pursuit of goods to 
meet economic need than from any other cause. The collective pursuit 
of worship, or sociability, or knowledge, or even of righteousness has less 
influence, it is contended, than has the pursuit of the food and shelter 
whereby men are to be kept alive. To this general conception is given 
the name "economic determinism." 

The Malthusian law, formulated more than a century ago by Malthus, 
is to the effect that human beings, like all other living plant and animal 
creatures, tend to increase steadily in a world whose land surface and 
other means of food supply are strictly limited. Theoretically, then, and 
excepting only in times of rapid change, the number of people occupying 
any region presses constantly against the limits of available subsis- 
tence. Thus there results an incessant struggle for existence, which leads 
to famine, plague, disease, war, and migration — and thus these become in 
fact positive checks against overpopulation. 

With some of the philosophical implications of this theory we are not 
at present concerned. For sociologist and educator it is sufficient to 
recognize the enormous part played in all modem life by economic forces. 
It seems probable that the "intellectuals" of our day, including not a few 
educators, affect a considerable indifference, and even contempt, toward 
economic processes and interdependencies that is not only unjustified, 
but is seriously prejudicial to the development of more extensive mutual 
understanding and good will. 

THE FACTORS OF ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY 

Economic efficiency is not, certainly, "an end in itself" in human life. 
Economic goods are means — very precious means to many, in view of 
inherited appetites and easily developed appreciations and ambitions. But, 
like the foundation walls of a secure house, they are highly essential means 
to "life more abundantly" — in the view of, perhaps, all but Hindoo 
mystics. 

The economic efficiency of any considerable society or social group that 
we may select for examination is, clearly, a composite of many factors, 
several of which are so incommensurable that it is folly to compare them 
as of "greater or less importance" than others. 

These factors can best be analyzed by taking a people — of the United 
States, of Switzerland, of Rhode Island, or of the valley of the Po — 



124 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

and studying the conditions that contribute to their present proficiency 
in producing, conserving, and utilizing economic goods. 

Natural resources, present or procurable, are, obviously, basic. Copper, 
coal, or water can not be had where these do not exist. Plant food can 
not be produced where conditions of soil, climate, or moisture are want- 
ing. Manufacture , could not exist unless some region contributed raw 
materials. Large-scale operations are impracticable without sources in 
natural power — wind, descending water, trained animals, combustibles. 
We do not expect wheat from the deserts, fish from dry land, mineral 
oil from regions of granite, fruits from polar lands. 

Man's accumulated powers of economic production — some instinc- 
tive, some slowly acquired as customs and arts, some evolved purpo- 
sively as science and invention — constitute another basic factor. Like 
the plants and animals, man in his primitive stages lived on the bounty 
of nature through collection and capture of edibles, discovery of natural 
shelter, and utilization of natural organs. He gradually became a tool- 
using, shelter-building, fire-controlling, animal-domesticating, machine- 
building animal. Of greatest importance were his "time-binding" powers 
— that is, of accumulating increments of experience, knowledge, ideals, 
through the generations. We are told that very few inventions are out- 
right and original with any one man — that each discoverer really stands on 
the shoulders of innumerable predecessors. We can be sure that the 
modern metallurgy of steel represents accumulation of experience reach- 
ing back thousands of years. Doubtless earth, water, and air still abound 
with utilities that art and science have not evolved sufficiently to tap 
or control. Even to-day the backward peoples of a large part of the 
earth's surface secure only a fraction of the material goods to which 
they could have access if they but used the world's knowledge as it is now 
organized. 

Social order is also an essential factor in economic efficiency. Where 
anarchy and disorder prevail, crops will not be planted, domesticated 
animals disappear, and presently no seed is left. Especially does it be- 
come impossible to undertake enterprises in which much time must elapse 
between outlay and return. Orchards can not be planted, good roads 
made, ships built, mines opened, or factories erected where property 
rights are insecure. The institution of private property — that "to each 
shall be his own" — has long been protected by progressive peoples as a 
means to enhanced productiveness for all. The ages of conquest, with 
all their mischievous consequences, may nevertheless have laid the founda- 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 125 

tions of real social well-being through the various conservations of the 
social inheritance that they evolved. 

Stored wealth or capital is also an essential means of productive effi- 
ciency beyond the lowest stages — even if that be only a tried weapon, 
a grown dog, some seed for planting, a worn trail, or a few meals of 
food in reserve. Stored wealth held for productive purposes has always 
been, obviously, a constant temptation to the predatory instincts of men 
— ^probably now no less than ever before. Endless new methods of indi- 
vidual or collective invasions of capital savings — from seed corn to bank 
capital — are always being devised. Nations now find it necessary to ad- 
dress themselves to the task of insuring order and righteousness toward 
those who hold productive capital, hardly less than to the task of defense 
against external enemies. 

Individual general efficiency is likewise a factor of prime importance 
in economic production. Little children, morons, the very sick and aged, 
can not use the "social inheritance," even with good natural resources 
and social order. Health, strength, intelligence, general education, and 
industrious disposition are essential — qualities that are dependent in large 
measure upon inheritance and family rearing. These are the qualities 
frequently brought by immigrants to America, or developed on frontiers. 
In measures adjusted to human needs they are the products of the "pro- 
longed infancy" of man, the monogamous family, and of man's imitative 
instincts. They are reinforced by numberless social customs, some of 
which date far back in the evolution of our species. 

Specific individual vocational efficiency — that is, fitness by nature and 
training to meet well the responsibilities of specific fields of production, 
such as growing oranges, making watches, or inventing new processes 
of extracting nitrogen from the air — has always received some consid- 
eration, but never so much as now. The "social inheritance" of the arts 
and sciences of economic production can in part be acquired by imita- 
tion and "pick-up" methods — but only in part. Under some conditions 
they can be transmitted by apprenticeship — but that system of vocational 
training evolved in eras of handicraft production fits badly into modern 
conditions. More purposive and controlled vocational training for hun- 
dreds — perhaps thousands — of vocations, rather than for a score of aris- 
tocratic vocations, is a pressing contemporary demand of all who aspire 
to further economic efficiency. 

Education for utilization of economic goods is just as possible and 
practicable as education for production. Such education is properly a 



126 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

part of sumptuary, hygienic, civic, and cultural education — of liberal edu- 
cation, in a word. Its primary purpose, obviously, is to educate toward 
higher appreciations, finer discriminations, providence, and such utiliza- 
tion as will enable each consumer to realize the maximum advantage 
from the utilities that become his. 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF ECONOMIC GROUPS ^ 

Economic groups exist primarily to increase the production, conserva- 
tion, exchange, or utilization of useful commodities. Hence the first 
and major consideration in all proposals for improvement looks to the 
betterment of the functions named. We have every reason to expect 
that future evolutional tendencies in economic production and utilization 
will be steadily in the direction of the more extensive use of scientific 
knowledge and labor-saving mechanisms, the further territorial and per- 
sonal specialization of productive service, the increased use of capital 
as a means of production, and the elaboration of state or other collective 
oversight of all of the social processes involved. Pathological by-products 
of modern economic processes may be expected to receive constantly in- 
creased scientific and governmental consideration. These range from 
occupational diseases and "starvation" of fellowship in mining, machine 
production, and transportation to the far-reaching sociological conse- 
quences of warlike conflicts engendered among economically competing 
nations or classes of workers, or the more obscure effects upon family 
life and government due to various new kinds of economic pressures. 

The social sciences are making steady progress in discovering the 
underlying facts and conditions contributing to economic unproductive- 
ness. The functions of fixed, and of mobile, capital, of currency, of 
technical leadership, and of overhead organization in economic processes, 
have long been understood by relatively few people— and hardly ever 
perfectly by them. Misapprehensions and even superstitions regarding 
them have long prevailed. The development of social science subjects 
in the higher institutions of learning in recent years, as well as the wide- 
spread evolution of economic literature in journals and books, may be 
expected gradually to produce generally dififused and fairly accurate 
knowledge as to the place and probable functions of the various agencies 
of economic activity. The spread of such knowledge, like the spread 

^ Dewey and Tufts, EthicS (Ch. 22, The Ethics of the Economic Life); E. T. 
Devine, Misery and Its Causes (Ch. 3, Out of Work) ; T. N. Carver, Social Justice 
(Ch. 6, How Ought Wealth Be Distributed?). 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 127 

of proper knowledge of hygiene and sanitation, ought ultimately to produce 
substantial effects in correct economic theory sufficient at least to regu- 
larize governmental and other public policies. 

The processes of exchange are generally believed to be still far less 
efficient than right cooperative practice can make possible. Convictions 
are general as to the unnecessary costliness of certain intermediate pro- 
cesses in exchange that have gradually evolved in the hands of what are 
commonly called "middle-men." As the time, distance, and complexities 
of processes of transport and exchange between the original producer and 
the ultimate consumer of any particular commodity have increased, op- 
portunities for exploitation through monopoly, fraud, and other devices 
have necessarily multiplied. Public opinion readily entertains the con- 
viction that in the distribution of milk in cities and of clothing to the 
entire population and of innumerable other economic utilities, jobbers, 
corporations controlling fabricating and packing processes (as in the 
food packing industries), distributors, wholesale merchants, and retail 
merchants are enabled, perhaps in defiance of ordinary laws of competi- 
tion, to subtract disproportionately large shares of the product for their 
services. 

Allied to this form of exploitation is that of adulteration, mislabeling, 
or otherwise disguising the true character of goods, so that consumers 
are at a loss what to get for their own best ends. Especially where con- 
sumable goods are the products of a multiplicity of agencies and where 
objective determination of worth becomes difficult (as in the case of coal, 
flour, fruits, jewelry, and numberless other manufactured products) do 
buyers in their collective capacity become virtually helpless in serving 
their own interests. 

Communal or governmental oversight seems to be the inevitable means 
of correcting the various pathological conditions growing out of ex- 
change and distribution. Every social sign of the times points to in- 
creased governmental requirements as to the branding of commodities, 
publicity in the operations of distributors, and the enforced correction 
of demonstrated uneconomical or anti-social practices. 

The effects of work upon the individual, moral, psychological, and 
physical, are becoming increasingly the concern of the commonwealth 
or other agencies engaged in promoting social economy. The regulation 
of the labor of minors and women, both as to extent and as to seasons, 
is one striking manifestation of this interest. The rapid evolution in 
recent years of employers' liability legislation, and of legislation regulating 
dangerous trades and industries, is another. Organized labor has for 



128 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

many years aimed at a shorter working day, actuated partly at least by 
concern for the physical and moral welfare of manual workers. Keen 
students of social psychology have for years been apprehensive of the 
effects of highly specialized vocational pursuits, believing that these 
would not only greatly restrict the development of the creative instincts 
of men, but would also impoverish their development as that should 
arise from the social, psychological, and even physical accompani- 
ments of occupational pursuits if these were carried on under proper 
conditions. 

It may be inevitable, indeed, that large portions of the work of the 
world, done with power-using machines operating almost, if not quite, 
automatically, will yield little or no by-product of cultural or social 
enrichment to the worker. If this be so, the road of progress for the 
future undoubtedly lies in the direction of shortening hours of labor and 
of enriching the developmental possibilities of the increased hours of 
leisure thus made available. Certainly progressive societies will never 
return to handicraft production, leaving nature's forces to run to 
waste. 

Cooperative relationships between employers and employees and buyers 
and sellers are now, as noted above, increasingly devoid of "personality 
elements." These conditions are probably destined to increase rather 
than diminish. Offsets must be found, on the one hand, in the evolu- 
tion of those forms of publicity that make for the maximum of mutual 
understanding, and that limit possibilities of deceit and misunderstand- 
ing in such relationships. Very probably, too, we shall be able to devise 
varieties of education that will, in advance of the development of these 
impersonal interdependencies, prepare people spiritually to appreciate 
their importance, and to evaluate rightly the endless situations that can 
easily become sources, if neglected, of prejudice and hostility. 

Communal or public ownership of the larger means of production, 
including land, facilities for transportation, and sources of natural power, 
has long been approved as a doctrine by propagandists, some of whose 
ideals, at least, look toward human betterment. In recent years these doc- 
trines have become the basis of the policies around which have been 
organized political parties and governmental experiments upon scales 
of much magnitude. The constantly increasing participation of the state, 
either in oversight or control, of various processes of production, gives 
rise to the phenomena sometimes included under the term "state so- 
cialism." 



ECONOMIC GROUPS 129 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

(Significant contributions to this topic can be made by report of essen- 
tials from the chapters referred to below.) 
Abbott, Edith. Women in Industry (Ch. 12, The Problem of Women's 

Wages). 
BuRCH, H. R. and Patterson, S. H. American Social Problems (Ch. 

13-14, Rise of Industry, Social Effects of Industry). 
Carver, T. N. The Distribution of Wealth (Ch. 3, The Forms of 

Wealth and Income). 
Clark, S. A. and Wyatt, Edith. Making Both Ends Meet (Ch. i. 

Income and Outlay of New York Saleswomen). 
Ghent, W. J. Mass and Class (Ch. i. The Problems). 
Haworth, p. L. America in Ferment (Ch. 10, How Can We Raise the 

Standard of Living?). 
Hendrick, Burton J. The Age of Big Business ("Yale Chronicle 

Series"). 
Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race (Ch. 14, The Racial Influence of 

Industrial Development). 
Moody, John. The Railroad-Builders ("Yale Chronicle Series"). 
Ross, E. A. The Old World in the Nezv (Ch. 9, Economic Consequences 

of Immigration). 
Smith, J. R. The Story of Iron and Steel (a brief and vivid story). 
Turberville and Howe. Great Britain in the Latest Age (Ch. 4, Steam 

Power and Machinery in Industry ; Ch, 5, Modern Transport and the 

Expansion of Commerce). 
Veblen, T. The Theory of Business Enterprise (Ch. 6, Modern Busi- 
ness Capital). 



CHAPTER X 
RELIGIOUS GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERipNCE 

NEARLY all Americans are closely or loosely affiliated with one or 
more religious groups. Such affiliation commonly seems to serve 
two purposes : it satisfies certain social desires and interests of the indi^ 
vidual; and it enables the religious group to render better service to so- 
ciety. 

The reader has, through his experience and general reading, become 
fairly well informed as to a wide range of facts regarding the sociological 
aspects of religions and religious groups. He knows that "Christian 
ideals" have contributed to the social evolution of the American people. 
He is aware of the conflicts to which religious rivalries in the past have 
given rise, but he seldom feels a poignant interest in the matters then at 
issue. He realizes that the progress of scientific knowledge is working 
changes on the concrete elements of religious faiths. And finally it can 
not have escaped his observation that, whilst some good men are irre- 
ligious and some bad men are religious, nevertheless the great majority 
of good men and women seem also to be devoted adherents of some 
well defined religious faith, even when not communicants of a particular 
church. These questions admit of ready answer from experience : 

1. What is the usual form of organization of the social group called a 
"congregation"? What are the functions of such an organization on behalf 
of its individual members? How are the several forms of leadership — 
spiritual, business, social — provided? 

2. What seem to you the essential differences between: Roman Catholics 
and Methodists; Mohammedans and Hebrews; Buddhists and Christians? 
Do such factors as race, economic condition, education, temperament, and 
sex seem to affect preferences for particular denominations or churches? 

3. What seem to be the sociological sources of: missionary zeal; mania 
for persecution; superstitions; conflict of church and state — as seen in their 
complete separation in the United States and France, and their growing 
separation in England and Germany? 

4. Does it appear that all people at all times have assumed the existence 
of invisible (or rarely visible) powers in remote and inaccessible places — 
in the dark, under the surface of the earth, on the mountain tops, in deep 

130 



RELIGIOUS GROUPS 131 

woods, in the sky, and in heavenly bodies ? Does it appear that men nearly 
always ascribe to these assumed beings human bodily, as well as mental, 
qualities? Are these sometimes linked up with the qualities of much feared 
or loved animals, and occasionally with the more dramatic of natural physical 
phenomena? In what ways are the beings thus "projected" — fairies, gnomes, 
gods, demons, benevolent and malevolent spirits of all kinds — commonly 
assumed to be able to influence the affairs of men for good or for evil? 
Trace origins in all societies of endless forms of propitiation, sacrifice, 
exorcism, prayer, worship. Show how the expression and transmission of 
beliefs produce rituals and other ceremonials. 

Show how it is commonly in the processes of social control (and especially 
those whereby the young are molded toward full membership in groups) that 
the "wills of the gods" (including the malign designs of demons) shall be 
taught, and the conduct of the learner influenced thereby. 

5. Why is it contended by many of our most "socialized" leaders that 
religion is essential to morality? What phases or kinds of moral behavior 
can ^ probably be assured through training quite unrelated to religious faiths? 
What phases of behavior, and especially what ideals, seem most easily 
attainable through intense religious faiths in a "just God," a malignant 
Satan, very realistic places of abode after death? Assume the problem of 
fully "socializing" boys and girls toward righL adult behavior : what aids 
could be had through their possession of firm faith in the personal watch- 
fulness of an omniscient God, loving yet just, and in the certainty of 
deserved rewards and penalties hereafter? 

6. Does it seem probable that the "survival" of the "most fit" in the past 
has been helped by the character of the religion that they have developed? 
Would fetishism probably be worse or better than "ancestor worship" ? 
Monotheism than polytheism? Christianity than Mohammedanism? 

Do religious beliefs seem materially to affect : the martial ardors of 
peoples? Their industry and thrift? Their morality? Their attitudes 
toward the fine arts? Their political independence or submissiveness ? Their 
promotion of justice? What examples are especially suggestive? 

7. What seem to you to be some far-reaching social consequences of the 
various kinds of religious beliefs held by contemporary men? Discuss with 
especial reference to the bearing of these on: extension and application of 
scientific knowledge; restriction of the increase of population; approval or 
disapproval of polygamy; opposition to, or support of, war; encouragement 
of industry and thrift; correction of wasteful or anti-social practices, such 
as alcoholism and gambling? 

8. What are the usual consequences of "scientific advancement" on re- 
ligious beliefs? On their anthropomorphism? On the material character 
of sacrifices? On the rigidity of dogma? On expenditures for accessories 
of worship ? On ritualistic ceremonial ? 



132 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

9. What seem to you to be the causes of the large number of "denomina- 
tions" in the United States? 

10. Under what circumstances, historically, have religious groups played 
active parts in politics? Under what circumstances are they largely pre- 
vented from taking part as organizations? 

11. What seem to be some of the positive helps and some of the hindrances 
to sound social development arising respectively from: Mohammedanism; 
Brahmanism; Confucianism? 

12. In what ways, as you see it, are "improvements" in society largely 
dependent upon more effective religious practices? Do these require changes 
in the ideals and organization of the religious groups, or simply better 
religious education of the young? 

13. How do you explain the fact that in the Great War there were 
practically no "religious alignments"? On each side were united together 
Catholics, Protestants, and Hebrews, Christians, and Mohammedans, Do you 
infer that political groupings are much more basic than religious? 

ORIGINS ^ 

All men seem to postulate the probable existence of unseen beings, be- 
nignant or malignant, in the inaccessible or otherwise invisible regions 
around them.^ Toward these beings men usually hold attitudes of fear, 
love, respectful awe, or hate. It is commonly believed that these beings 
can not only help or hurt us, here or hereafter, but that their disposition 
to do the one or the other can be affected by our behavior toward them. 
These spiritual or supernatural beings are naturally interpreted in the 
likenesses of known human beings or animals, with striking qualities 
brought into relief. The powerful deities are very powerful: the good 
and just, very good and just; the beautiful, very beautiful; the impish, 
very impish; the malevolent very evil indeed. Dernons partake of the 
characteristics of serpents, crocodiles, wolves, and apes. Angels are 
fine men and women or even children, divested of needless earthly at- 
tributes and given the mobility that befits their spheres of action. Hateful 
old women, or vindictive old men, seductive women vampires, and Ma- 
chiavellian gentlemen suggest varieties of fearsome witches, gnomes, 
and Satanic agents. 

The religious experiences of mankind find their origins in these ten- 
dencies, so easily made active in all youth as to seem broadly instinctive, 
to assume the existence of unseen beings with qualities not unlike our 

*The inquiring student will certainly read H. Spencer, First Principles (Part I, 
Religion and Science, and especially Ch. 2, Ultimate Religious Ideals). 
"See E. B. Tyler, Primitive Culture (Ch. 14, The Spirit World). 



RELIGIOUS GROUPS 133 

own, who people the dark distant places, or even some inner essence 
of the objects about us. It seems very natural for primitive man to 
believe that the "spirit" of each man takes, after death, its place among 
this invisible choir. He comes easily to explain striking phenomena — 
storms, thunder, wind, moon movements, and even changing seasons, plant 
growth, and disease — by reference to intelligent agents working beyond 
his ken. 

In the sense here indicated it is probable that all peoples, however 
primitive, have religious systems — expressed through taboos, beliefs, 
practices of magic, and the like. These religious faiths are inevitably 
utilized in social control. Elders, magicians, and all other priestly min- 
isters teach of the prohibitions and commands supposed to come from the 
unseen ones. Penalties and rewards lie in the gift of powerful gods. 
The future is known to them. They should be consulted as to the prob- 
able outcomes of each new venture.^ 

Around religious beliefs are formed the worshiping groups of mankind. 
Joint or cooperative worship seems almost a social necessity to many. 
Profoundly felt convictions call so insistently for propaganda that many 
of the world's greatest religious leaders become also devoted mission- 
aries. The best religions bring so much into relief the highest and nob- 
lest qualities and aspirations of men, and enshrine them so attractively 
in deities, that millions of mankind, over scores of generations, may be 
most vitally influenced thereby. 

These powerful beliefs can, of course, divide, no less than unify, men. 
Many ancient wars were fought between the adherents of divergent re- 
ligious systems. Some very bitter modern conflicts follow the rifts of 
large churches into sects. Religious groups, bent upon self-protection 
or aggrandizement, have given rise to many of the migrations, crusades, 
educational movements, and institution-building efforts recorded in his- 
tory. It is of the utmost interest to the study of education that re- 
ligious bodies have so often served as the protecting agencies of culture, 
the foster mothers of science and arts, and the centers of saving philan- 
thropy. But it is also a sad fact that, in pursuit of their own ends, they 
have at times repudiated enlightening education, crushed scientific in- 
quiry, sterilized art, and persecuted the devotees of fine new faiths. 

Religious instincts seem always to be a part of original human nature ; 
but these do not now admit of concrete definition, and it is probable that 
they are in large part composite — that is, greatly colored by other instincts, 
if not shaped by them. Sympathetic studies of primitive human beings 

^ H. Spencer, The Principles of Sociology (Part I, Primitive Religions). 



134 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

seem to indicate that, as stated above, all peoples: (a) postulate the ex- 
istence of unseen beings, usually malevolent or benevolent, in places 
relatively inaccessible to man's senses — in the dark, in caves, in deep 
woods, on mountain tops, in distant places; (b) impute to these the quali- 
ties of animals, human beings, and even natural forces; and (c) believe 
these supernatural beings to be more or less responsive to human desires 
as manifested in propitiations, sacrifices, pleadings, and the like. 

Many things that seem instinctive in religious phenomena are probably 
to be explained through a study of those powers of imagination that 
are part of man's hereditary nature. The imagination works projec- 
tively to a large extent. What it creates or imagines it tends to locate 
outside the imagining agent. Naturally, all vivid experiences — of fear, 
love, satisfaction of hunger, desire of the lonely for fellowship — thrust 
themselves .to the front in the emotional and intellectual processes in- 
volved. It is not improbable that, by natural processes of evolution, 
man's psychological nature has become such that for the real wholesome- 
Bess of his nature he needs satisfying bodies of religious aspirations, be- 
liefs, and experiences. 

Very obviously, too, a religion that could well satisfy a people in one 
vStage of the evolution of its sensibilities could not satisfy that people 
at a later stage. Hence as societies evolve from primitive savagery their 
religions must change — sometimes gradually, sometimes cataclysmically. 
Meantime the original foundations in the "nature of man" may remain 
largely the same. The visible changes take place in the external manifes- 
tations of this nature — and these external manifestations have been 
inevitably determined largely, first by what man has known of nature, 
and second by what he has learned of various other human beings.* 

Concrete religious beliefs of primitive men center largely in earthly 
phenomena, including the factors that affect human good will or ill will. 
Very naturally, invisible deities are given concrete symbols that serve 
to elicit and focus religious appreciations. The student of the operations 
of mind in children, and in adults of primitive societies, is constantly 
tempted to use the word^ "natural" in describing the characteristic earlier 
manifestations of the religious nature. It seems "natural," for example, 
for simple minds to magnify their own qualities as a means of under- 
standing the qualities of invisible deities. If a visible enemy seem very 
fierce or implacable, then the invisible one would probably be more so. 

* For suggestive modern points of view see : C. S. Macf arland, Spiritual Culture 
and Social Service; and S. Matthev^^s, The Individual and the Social Gospel. 



RELIGIOUS GROUPS " 135 

To all young people, and probably in primitive societies to a greater 
extent than now, fathers, and especially patriarchal fathers, possess certain 
dominating qualities — sometimes pleasing and alluring, sometimes terrify- 
ing and forbidding. A master deity could readily be conceived as endowed 
with some or all of these qualities raised to higher powers. 

It is doubtless a great misfortune for scientific sociology that it so 
often comes to the study of religious phenomena in the period of the 
decadence of religious groups. The evolution of religion, like the evolu- 
tion of government, necessarily witnesses long periods when old forms 
are being forced to yield to new. Since the old forms have inevitably 
erected protective mechanisms for themselves, — faiths and institutions of 
all sorts, — the processes of disintegration from within, coupled with 
destruction from without, are always mournful and often repulsive. 
Numberless forms of fetishism, idolatry, and polytheism have had to 
give way as men emerged toward the light and as newer and finer inter- 
preters arose. It is also an historical fact charged with mournful sig- 
'nificance that the great minds and spirits that projected the religious 
aspirations and faiths which have played so great a part in civilization 
brought their messages when only fractions of the peoples reached were 
ready for them. The evolution of Confucianism and Buddhism, to say 
nothing of Christianity, has been a perpetual struggle with more primi- 
tive beliefs and forms of worship. Always the good will and the piety 
of the more intelligent and altruistic have supported concrete religious 
manifestations for which numberless of others were not ready, and which, 
indeed, tended to arouse the deepest hostility of the latter. 

Nevertheless, the lines of evolutional progress are clear to the man 
who will "cross-section" human societies as these were, for example, three 
hundred, thirteen hundred, three thousand, and ten thousand years ago. 
There are places to-day where decadent peoples cling to decadent re- 
ligions. Even in societies sharing in the best of the social inheritance that 
civilization has to give, there are periods of retrogression, and there are 
groups that practically cast aside their accumulations of religious wealth. 
But the sociologist will surely find these to be exceptions to the prevailing 
order. The large majority of mankind still find it necessary to satisfy 
the religious nature — but, naturally, by means of beliefs and manifesta- 
tions that square with contemporary knowledge of nature, as well as 
with experience in the cooperating possibilities of men. Anthropomor- 
phism inevitably dwindles. Men steadily concern themselves more with 
remoter consequences, and less with day-by-day results. In religions as 



136 ' EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

in other matters the more far-sighted erect their faiths on broader and 
more enduring foundations, and with fuller confidence in the orderly pur- 
posiveness of the universe, than did their forefathers. 

The religious adjustment of each new generation probably presents 
increased difficulties in proportion as any religion becomes freed from 
anthropomorphic elements. The young must inevitably recapitulate some 
of the processes of racial evolution whilst acquiring so much of the social 
inheritance as they can assimilate. Wise teaching obviously reduces 
almost to vanishing point childish tendencies toward animism and fear 
of demons; Less easy is it to give secure holds on helpful and conduct- 
affecting beliefs in a ruling providence and divine omniscience. Scaf- 
foldings of interpretive ideas must of necessity be erected; but so to build 
these that they will not damage the permanent structure when their re- 
moval becomes necessary is a pedagogical problem that is yet far from 
solution. 

Similar difficulties are encountered in missionary service at home and 
abroad. Inevitably the pathfinders here try less to give extended inter- 
pretations of a strictly theological nature, whilst they devote themselves 
more to the exemplification of the religious spirit in social service. 

FUNCTIONS ^ 

The functions of religion, like those of knowledge, wealth, beauty, 
fellowship, and the rest, are clearly of two kinds. By the individual it 
is felt to be an end in itself — a "good" that satisfies a felt need. But 
when men think and act collectively, religion is also perceived to be a 
means, often a necessary means, toward the reahzation of some of the 
larger ends of life. 

. Social psychology does not yet give adequate light on problems of the 
priority of these values. It is inherently probable, of course, that the very 
processes of natural evolution have conspired to make men jeel as in- 
dividual or person many of the values that have final significance only 
as contributing to "the good of the whole." Obviously, the opposition 
here suggested has intrigued philosophical thinking even as far back as 
the debates between Stoics and Epicureans. 

The records of religion — the sacred books, prophecies, dramas, rituals, 
prayers, and sermons — seem always strongly to emphasize the social 
ministry of religion. Through these records it is seen as a means of end- 
lessly fostering good will, of promoting cooperations of all sorts, and of 

" Durkheim, E., The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. 



RELIGIOUS GROUPS 137 

stressing the behaviors that make for life on the one hand, or death on 
the other. Naturally and inevitably, as the sociologist sees it, any religious 
system serves the interests of it own faithful at first. The great spiritual 
founders often, it is true, embrace all humanity, perhaps all living 
creatures, v^^ithin their charity and love; but their followers can seldom 
reach such heights, except as they yield blind and unintelligent submission 
to dogma. 

All primitive religions were very probably employed as means of social 
control. Conceivably in the thousand century-long competitive struggles 
of paleolithic man only those groups that developed increasing powers of 
social cohesion due, among other things, to their use of such religious 
leadings as they had, were destined to become the progenitors of the 
peoples who finally possessed the earth. Without doubt the "old men," 
the "medicine men," the wielders of magic, the priests (using the term 
generically) played a very large role always in providing for group 
solidarity, for internal harmony, and for all other forms of social co- 
• operation without which the group must perish in its hostile environment. 

Possibly modern tendencies in religious evolution have rendered 
religious faiths in some respects less rather than more efficacious as a 
means of social control. If there are natures that can be held in check 
only by means of fear, then, probably, the fading of beliefs in vengeful 
deities, in the realities of fiery pits, and in continued post-mundane per- 
sonal existence and responsibility, is operating to free them of some fears 
that may have held their prototypes some hundreds of years ago in 
orderly subjection. We may indulge in guesses here, as we choose; but 
obviously sociology will have to possess more accurate measures of col- 
lective good and evil before it can speak with certitude. 

But for large numbers of men religion — defined in its broader aspects 
— is probably no less a means of social control to-day than formerly. But 
here again, as, possibly, in all former times, it must be coupled up with 
various other means of social influence. Few enlightened men can escape 
the conviction that purposiveness characterizes the order of nature, even 
though they have learned to disclaim any ability on their part to explain 
specific seeming incongruities in that order. John Burroughs, a pro- 
foundly religious man in a sense that is necessarily unintelligible to many, 
completely disclaims, in his Accepting the Universe, any specific ability 
on the part of a scientist to interpret specific manifestations of divine 
intent in the phenomena that interest the naturalist. But such men would 
be the last to ascribe to blind chance the endless procession of material and 
human events that, seen in perspective, fall into an orderly array which 



138 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

is explicable only in terms of natural laws — some of which still elude 
human comprehension.'^ 

Religious values seem to have been enhanced throughout history by the 
numberless competitions to which they gave rise. The holders of inferior 
beliefs have doubtless gone down before their rivals, partly on account 
of those beliefs. Within any social group, constant competitions prevail 
between rival dogmas, shades of belief, rituals, and social applications. 
Under some circumstances these competitions reach the proportions of 
destructive" conflicts and persecutions of the most vicious kind. Natural 
evolution seems to operate in this realm as it does elsewhere. But in time 
"balances of power" may be reached in which a truce to persecutions is 
declared. Constructive rivalries persist, as can be witnessed everywhere 
to-day. 

Religious education is always a means, not only of furthering each type 
of faith, but of making its social applications effective. Formerly the 
state, because of its patronage of a state church or because of its supposed 
dependence upon religion as a means of fullest political service and con- 
trol, fostered such education in a variety of ways.''' 

Modern political evolution has, however, tended toward progressive 
separation of church and state. Presently the schools of the state cease 
altogether to participate in religious education, even where no rival sects 
dispute over ends and means so hotly as to necessitate strict neutrality 
on the part of the public schools. In most modern republics the state 
tends to leave to religious organizations complete responsibility for 
religious education. 

But that certainly does not mean, on the part of organized society, 
indifference to religious values. Perhaps a more fully developed program 
of social education in public schools than we yet possess will succeed, 
without sectarianism, in promoting widespread respect in the rising gen- 
eration for the social values of all religions. Perhaps the gradual ac- 
ceptance of certain basic principles of social evolution will make it prac- 
ticable for large numbers realistically to understand that the religious life, 
as essential value to all fiormal men, is, nevertheless, something which, in 
its external attachments in belief, institution, and application, must per- 
petually change as knowledge expands and men's group relationships 
widen. The "social education" processes of public schools may not include 
religious teaching, much less religious propaganda. They may well include 
objective and dispassionate study of the social values of all religions and 

''See W. James, Pragmatism (Ch. 8, Pragmatism and Religion). 
'' Coe, G. A., Education in Religion and Morality. 



RELIGIOUS GROUPS 139 

the promotion of respect for all as among the finest achievements of 
human effort. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

1. The Meaning of Democracy in Religion. See L. Abbott, The Spirit 
of Democracy (Ch. 12, The Spirit of Democracy in Religion). 

2. Religion as a Means of Moral Education. See H. Ellis, The Task of 
Social Hygiene (Ch. 7, Religion and the Child). 

3. Racial Influences of Religion. See S. J. Holmes, Trend of the Race 
(Ch. 15, The Selective Functions of Religion). 

4. Religious Help to the Unfortunate. See J. L. Gillin, Poverty and 
Dependency (Ch. 35, Socialized Religion). 



CHAPTER XI 
ASSOCIATIONS AND PARTIES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE intellectual, religious, and political freedom enjoyed by Ameri- 
cans have caused us to develop to a remarkable extent social groups 
made up of volunteers eager to promote by cooperative effort some par- 
ticular object. We have all had experience with cliques and gangs. Most 
of us have shared in work of political parties. In school or church we 
have been members of various clubs and young people's societies. We 
know that a large part of the relief work, as well as the popularizing of 
new ideas and movements, is carried on by associations, societies, leagues, 
or other organizations formed of those of like interests, like ideals, and 
often like abilities, who give but a fraction of their time and money to 
the advancement of the objects for which the particular organization 
stands. 

The social groupings thus formed differ, in several vital respects, from 
families, community groups, states, economic groups, and religious 
societies. They are often less permanent and institutional ; their purposes 
are often very concrete and specific; and their membership is usually 
fairly homogeneous. We have, of course, political parties that are many 
decades old, and not a little institutionalized. There are "secret societies" 
that are said to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. 

Nevertheless, parties and associations of the hundreds of kinds here 
grouped have as their usual characteristic modes and functions the promo- 
tion of present and temporary purposes. They are very fluid and adjust- 
able. Even the children of our schools and suburban communities now 
form them by scores. Hardly any worthy work, or the advancement of 
a new idea, is undertaken except there be formed a "society" for its 
furtherance. These questions will tap suggestive personal experience : 

1. It is often asserted ■ that men or youths are "gregarious." What does 
this mean to you ? Do the following seem ''herdlike" : a boys' gang ; a mob ; 
the two parents and three young children of a family; the stockholders of 
a corporation ; the "crowd" at a baseball game or in a theater ; all the readers 
of the New Republic; the pupils of a class room; a crowd of strikers? 

2. What is the "social cement" that binds together : a crowd gathered 
to see a fire; a "band" of trappers beyond the frontier; a gang of train 
robbers; a "band" of mercenary soldiers; a clique of high-school girls; 
the members of a men's social club; a college fraternity? 

140 



ASSOCIATIONS AND PARTIES 141 

3. Are the members of the groups mentioned above made "like-minded" 
more by one than another of these qualities : instincts or impulses ; perception 
of self-interest; long habituation? 

4. Why is it that so many of the groups here under discussion are re- 
garded as more or less anti-social? Have in mind especially cliques, gangs, 
tongs, secret societies, fraternities, the followers of a political boss, mobs, 
and social sets. Does it appear that these forms of social grouping are 
in the main survivals of ancient forms, and that as a rule they are ill 
adapted to modern civilized life? 

5. Educators sometimes hold that it is not well to thwart the gang- 
forming instincts of adolescents, but that they should be given opportunity 
for wholesome expression. Trace outgrowths of this idea in scouting, boys' 
clubs, supervised fraternities, and the like. Does it appear to you that the 
loyalties, cooperations, and other social qualities developed in such groups 
constitute the germs of the larger loyalties, cooperations, and other social 
qualities that state and other federate groupings must rely upon later? 

6. What are some of the assimilation problems presented to-day by : the 
French-Canadians in Canada; the Dutch in South Africa; negroes in Amer- 
ica; the Irish in the United Kingdom; special ethnic elements in Italy, France, 
Denmark, and Russia? Do the following present problems of ethnic as- 
similation : Indians in the United States ; Italian immigrants in the United 
States ? 

7. Define the meaning of "Americanization." What are some of its spe- 
cial implications for: political ideals; religious aspirations; common culture; 
sumptuary standards; moral customs; sociability customs? 

8. Of what political party are you a member ? Before nominations and 
platforms are decided upon, what particular wing or branch of the party 
do you favor? In national politics, what ends are chiefly favored by this 
party? With which of these are you in hearty accord? As to which are 
you in doubt or opposed? 

What has been the history of this party? How is it held together? Does 
it seem now responsive to the majority will of its members? 

9. To what cultural or other "societies" (other than those to procure 
sociability or fellowship among their own members) do you belong? Which 
of these have philanthropic purposes? Which the "promotion" of ideas 
or "policies"? Which the advancing of a profession? 

10. When a few men or women discover that they are thinking somewhat 
alike about some matter, why does it seem very natural for them to form 
a society or party group to promote their views, or to effect their ends? 
What are the usual steps taken? What is meant by "parliamentary pro- 
cedure" in this connection? Why are paid officials employed? 

11. Assume that in a certain city of 20,000 voters there are estimated 
to be 3000 who are very much dissatisfied with the government of the city, 



142 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

which seems to be controlled by "professional politicians." These 3000 
are indifferent to local governmental control by Democrats or Republicans. 
They want simply honest and efficient discharge of such functions as public 
education, street repair, policing, and the like. They decide to form an 
organization to achieve their desires. Suggest the specific ends to which 
they shcnild address themselves, and the machinery they should adopt, 
assuming that all are very busy with their own private affairs. 

12. What are your impressions of the usual course by which each of 
the numerous Protestant denominations or sects has been produced? 

13. What, if any, desirable limits do you see to "party" formation and 
activity in a country like the United States? 

14. Can adolescents be so educated that in party strife they will play 
fair and abide by the will of the majority? How? 

15. It is sometimes said that India, Egypt, and Persia "are not ready" for 
self-government. What are evidences of this? How could they be made 
ready ? 

16. Have you known parties to be formed for the purpose of destroying 
the freedom of other parties? 

17. It is sometimes said that in these times of monopolies and of conflicts 
between employers and employees "consumers should organize." To what 
ends, and by what methods, does it seem best to you that they should do this ? 
How would you desire to function individually in some such organization? 

18. "Parties are the fertile soil of democracy." How? Why? 

19. What is the "bloc" in a legislative body? Why is it dreaded often by 
statesmen ? 

ORIGINS OF ASSOCIATE OR PARTY GROUPS ^ 

Primitive society everywhere exhibits a variety of forms of associate 
groups made compact by loyalties and other controls, frequently of a 
strongly instinctive kind. On the fringes of tribal organizations, and 
often within them, bands or secret societies have always been formed, 
sometimes of outlawed members, more frequently of members within the 
tribe eager to promote special ends. Any male warriors naturally tend 
easily to form these predatory bands, hunting groups, or ritualistic fra- 
ternities.^ 

Under conditions of social disorganization men everywhere naturally 
ally themselves into groups made homogeneous through pursuit of some 
common end, or in response to a common characteristic. In advanced 

^ Many chapters in E. A. Ross, Social Control, are valuable here. 
^ Consult H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies. 



ASSOCIATIONS AND PARTIES 143 

societies these small groups are often pathological. They are frequently 
symptoms of slow social disintegration, and they may well be forerunners 
of social explosions. Solidifying causes are sometimes found in the com- 
mon perception of danger, in possibilities of concrete gain, or the seeking 
of revenge. Not infrequently they are sporadic responses to destructive, 
predatory, or orgiastic impulses. 

Youthful gangs, cliques, and many other more or less contemporary 
groupings found in modern cities, institutions of learning, and sometimes 
in the country and in industrial plants, would seem to be "vestigial sur- 
vivals" based upon the same social instincts that in primitive life played 
very useful roles. Modern societies also exhibit similar forms under 
certain specific kinds of social incentive. In time of public danger or 
passion, crowds can easily be formed into mobs. Persons otherwise very 
dissimilar can be drawn closely together by common grievances, common 
aspirations, or because of some external pressure. 

- Older civilizations with stored wealth of food, art objects, or other 
lures constitute a standing temptation to the formation of predatory bands 
that may, after a while, develop elaborate rituals of initiations, pass- 
words, and other devices for the protection of the group. Large cities like 
those of America and France, and ill governed and ignorant populations 
like those of China and India, constitute rich soil for the growth of 
parasitic associations. 

In large cities the followers of political leaders may easily take the 
form of predatory bands "made cohesive by expectation of public 
plunder." Such pathological manifestations in modern life as the feud 
and vendetta can well be regarded as unwholesome survivals of remote 
periods when the administration of justice rested largely within the hands 
of clans or ganglike groups. Secret societies, tongs, and many other asso- 
ciate groupings preserve at least some of these ancient characteristics, in 
antagonism to the rule of the modern state. Cults, blood brotherhoods, 
and very special schools are more or less based upon the same instinctive 
inheritance. 

"Submerged nationalities," those implacable obstacles to homogeneous 
nationalism in so many parts of the world, derive their powers of en- 
durance very largely from the same psychological qualities as underlie the 
formation of bands. There is a real or assumed ethnic quality differing 
from that of the conquerors. Castlelike barriers are consciously fostered. 
The direct and personal controls exercised by members on each other may 
far transcend in potency the controls exercised by the state. Social 



144 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

differences between the submerged group and the prevailing group are 
magnified in all possible ways toward the ultimate purpose of producing 
political and cultural separateness. 



PARTY GROUPS 

Voluntary associations, more or less temporary, formed to promote 
particular purposes, are almost numberless in all modern societies. They 
are formed among children and adolescents, sometimes, as in cases of 
gangs and cliques, in response to instinctive dispositions lying quite near 
the surface, sometimes in imitation of older groups, e.g., fraternities, 
debating and dramatic societies, and sometimes in response to the initia- 
tion of an exceptional leader, as in the case of exploring, scouting, and 
sporting groups. 

Parties form incessantly among those constituting more fixed bodies — 
states, neighborhoods, churches, cooperating laborers, sociability groups. 
They may become the sources of new churches or new states. The intel- 
ligent, active man in modern society is a member of many parties or other 
voluntary associations. The citizen who desires to influence political or 
other social policies seeks out others of disposition like his own, and 
together they form a group with some kind of organization. Thus 
they pool their efforts, specialize their operations, and clarify their 
objectives. 

Political parties, in their more organized form, are the spontaneous 
product of republican, and conspicuously of representative, government. 
Thy are the vital social ferments giving activity and growth to demo- 
cratic societies. Men divide^ so naturally into those desirous of conserv- 
ing present achievements, and those desiring changes for the better (as 
they think), that we can everywhere trace the existence of parties of 
conservatives opposed to parties of radicals. Under oligarchic, and 
especially autocratic, government, parties have often relatively little free- 
dom to act in the opdn. They grow in secret and, of course, seek to 
provoke revolution. 

As political parties grow in size and coherence, it is inevitable that 
sub-parties shall form within them. These may eventually separate away 
and form new parties, or their struggles may wreck the old party. When 
parties extend over large areas, or include many varieties of members, 
incipient cleavages always exist. Southern and Northern Democrats rarely 
interpret desirable party policies in the same way. 



ASSOCIATIONS AND PARTIES 145 



KINDS AND PURPOSES 

Parties, sects, associations, cults, and other similar social groupings 
are, as has been noted, exceptionally numerous in modern democracies. 
They form, reform, and dissolve incessantly. Some are for the day only, 
some become highly institutionalized. Almost universally they are propa- 
gandist in purpose and method, strenuously seeking recruits and converts. 
Their efforts center usually in the purposive promotion of a few basic 
ideas or policies, or in forcing to the front personalities Mrho can give 
effect to such ideas. The mechanics of their organization and procedure 
have become largely standardized. They start with small numbers made 
"like-minded" by common interest in some "cause." Members subscribe 
dues, assessments, or contributions ; officers are selected to perform routine 
duties.; committees take up special tasks; and means of publicity and 
propaganda are evolved. 

The number of such "parties" in America is legion. A large part of 
the "liberty" assured in a democracy consists of liberty given to men 
to form, operate, and achieve results through such party groups. Under 
some circumstances they may cause revolution, but far more frequently, 
probably, they prevent it, since they become the indispensable means of 
social enlightenment and progress. They serve always to bring new 
ideas and policies to the front, and to criticize and to refine the dross 
out of established practices. They introduce into all forms of institutional 
life the principles of orderly and constructive competition and, like the 
current and waves of the ocean, they probably prevent society from stag- 
nating. 

A custom-based social order as represented by medieval civilization, 
and by a large part of the Orient to-day, is loath to tolerate open discus- 
sion, and especially any formal organization of parties to carry on such 
discussion. Autocratic rulers, absolutistic priesthoods, and privileged 
oligarchies are always endangered by parties. Naturally they repress and 
suppress them, with the frequent effect, of course, of driving them under- 
ground, where they burrow as secret societies, all the while planning the 
undermining or blowing up of the hated powers of higher control. 

Democracy of government, of culture, of industry, and even of religion, 
necessarily implies freedom of discussion and criticism. But this inevit- 
ably leads to the organization of the critics, which gives us parties. In 
theory every progressive people permits these to form and operate with 
entire freedom, subject only to the general limitation that they must not 



146 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

destroy freedom — ^that is, they must not seek the destruction of the state, 
which assures equahty of privilege, nor must they by coercion seek to 
hmit the freedom of rival parties. In time of emergencies, of course, the 
dangers threatening the state may be such as to make it seem necessary 
to governing authorities greatly to restrict freedom of parties. 

Political parties have become, in America, an apparently indispensable 
means of realizing republican government. Sometimes competitors for 
public office appear spontaneously, when honor or other emolument are 
involved. Naturally these and their friends make issues, even when there 
are none which are keenly felt by voters. Parties are thus formed around 
the respective candidates. 

More commonly, however, parties originate in basic differences of 
desire or understanding among citizens and precede appearance of advo- 
cates and candidates for office. Where two parties are in sharp competi- 
tion there is usually to be found a group of men who are not strictly in 
either party, who for the moment are independent or relatively neutral, 
and for the winning of whom the partizans of each group incessantly 
work. 

In a very real sense, then, political parties produce acute competitions 
of ideas, policies, programs, and, eventually, performances. Some of 
this competition is, obviously, misleading or malicious ; but much of it 
represents real and vital rivalry for the support of those who, in the 
last analysis, are judge and jurors before whom claim.s are pre- 
sented. The achievement of a social order in which party battles can 
be fought to an orderly issue is one of which modern civilization may 
well be proud. 

Sectarian parties with or without organization are potential or actual 
in all large religious, economic, fellowship, cultural, and other social 
groupings. They naturally tend to form around opposite poles of policy 
or ideal. In every considerable social aggregation there are those who are 
toward any vital issues conservative, and others who are radical. There 
are strict constructionists and loose constructionists; expansionists and 
contractionists ; heterodox and orthodox; liberals and traditionalists; and 
bold and timid. Institutional progress seems usually to require that these 
divisions be formed, but that they should not lead to permanent rifts. 
When centrifugal forces exceed centripetal in social groups, permanent 
sects or new organizations are formed, which may sometimes advance, 
and sometimes set back, the general social function that organizations of 
this type are calculated to serve. 



ASSOCIATIONS AND PARTIES 147 

Promotional associations of a non-political character and of number- 
less varieties are found in America and other democratic countries. These 
differentiate and organize persons having particular social interests, per- 
sonal or philanthropic, in view. Hundreds of societies now exist to 
protect and advance the interests of defectives and other handicapped 
persons. Other hundreds exist to promote interest in, and support for, 
particular forms of knowledge, art, or handicraft. Every "public- 
spirited" man or woman becomes, voluntarily or under subtle pressure, a 
member of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of these societies. His member- 
ship fee always helps, his attendance at conventions or elections is some- 
times important, and his leadership is occasionally vital. The individual 
members of these societies may often seem to play small parts. Not in- 
frequently the social usefulness of a given society can be justly chal- 
lenged. But the sociologist can not doubt that a dynamic civilization 
ijeeds these voluntary partizan groups. In large measure they 
are the primary inciters of the social progress that is eventually 
embodied in statutes and institutions. They are the means by which 
every mind and voice in a democracy, from that of the lowly illiter- 
ate to that of the favored natural leader, eventually expresses its due 
part. 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

(The literature of this topic is much scattered. Some will be found 
under such topics as "conflict," "competition," and "public opinion" in 
sociological text-books. Political Science and History present an ex- 
tensive literature on Political Parties, of which M. Ostrogorski's Democ- 
racy and the Organisation of Political Parties, J. Bryce's American Com- 
monwealth, and J. Bryce's recent work. Modern Democracies, are the 
classics). 

Bagehot, W. Physics and Politics (Ch. 5, The Age of Discussion). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Organisation (Ch. 12, The Theory of Public 

Opinion). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 22, Group Conflict and Modern 

Interpretation, Ch. 31, Public Opinion as Process). 
Key, Ellen. The Woman Question (Ch. 18, Changing Status of 

Women). 
Kropotkin, p. Mutual Aid (Ch. 8, Mutual Aid Among Ourselves). 
Macy, Jesse. Party Organisation and Machinery. 



148 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Ross, E. A. Principles of Sociology (Ch. 23, The Organization of 

Will). 
Tufts, J. H. Our Democracy (Ch. 11, First Steps in Liberty; Ch. 25, 

Measures Proposed for Greater Self -Government). 
WooDBURN, J. A. Political Parties and Party Problems. 



CHAPTER XII 
FELLOWSHIP GROUPS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE most basic and primitive instinctive qualities holding people, 
young or old, into groups (excepting only maternal and filial love, to 
which probably they are akin) manifest themselves in desires for com- 
panionship, fellowship, sociability, and friendship. A socius is in Latin 
a companion — hence our words social and society. 

These desires are usually, first of all, for persons very like ourselves- — 
in sex, age, experience. But, once sated with our own kind, our desires 
then reach out to those who, still friendly, are nevertheless of different 
.sex, age, or other type, who can give us new and grateful experiences. 

Even very young children possess a wealth of experience with condi- 
tions and problems of fellowship. Sensitive spirits may find it hard to 
realize true friendship. The "unsocial" man or woman finds himself 
in endless trouble among the highly socialized. Many cliques, gangs, 
parties, and even partnerships are first cemented together with fellow- 
ship. In complex societies fellowships and friendships grow largely out 
of affiliations and cooperations developed in schools, churches, political 
parties, and economic groups. In fact, one of the sad things about much 
of modern life is the very large number of cooperative functions that 
can or even must be discharged "impersonally" — that is, without any 
friendship, sociable intimacy, or fellowship. 

■ Only in family and neighborhood community groups — both of which 
have been rich sources of fellowship — has the reader had as broad an 
experience as in fellowship groups. Hence these questions should elicit 
ready interpretations of experience: 

1. What animals most nearly resemble human beings in their "love of 
companionship" or their sociability? Under what circumstances, and with 
what kinds of human beings, does isolation or aloofness seem a thing to 
be desired? 

2. Through and by means of what kinds of gatherings are your desires 
for fellowship most fully satisfied? Separately consider: association with 
employers; adult association with children; daily meetings in your family 
group ; boarding-house table assemblages ; church classes, congregations, or 
"societies"; gatherings of co-workers; dances; tavern groups; "parties" or 
receptions ; others. 

3. Under what circumstances do you find your desires for fellowship 
most fully satisfied by: many companions of your own age, sex, and cul- 

149 



150 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tural "kind"; one or two of your sex, same age; many of widely different 
ages, kinds and of both sexes; children much younger than yourself; persons 
much older than yourself; persons very different from yourself in culture 
or experience ? 

4. Which of the following vocations involve most loneliness or isolation, 
and with what circumstances: farming (specific boys, young men, middle- 
aged men, old men); hunting and trapping; railroading (various); ele- 
mentary school teaching; domestic service; law (for lawyers); department- 
store clerking; office of sea captain? 

5. Sailors, soldiers, lumbermen, cowboys, teachers, etc., sometimes claim 
to be "fed up" on one kind of companionship, and starved for others. Analyze 
and explain. 

6. What have been the "sociability" values of : the saloon or tavern ; the 
commercial dance hall ; the crossroads store ; the woman's club ; the man's 
club ; the church social ; the farmer's Grange ? 

7. Does it seem easily possible for people to become "over-gregarious," 
or excessively dependent upon companionship? Would city life promote such 
a vice? School life? Factory or sailor life? 

8. One of the commonest complaints urged against village or "small town" 
life is its isolation, loneliness, absence of congenial companions. Analyze 
situations known to you, and trace possible deficiencies in both sides — ^the 
town and the victim. 

9. "City life" is said to be very lonely for many young men and women. 
Why? Analyze some proposed remedies. 

10. With how many persons can one be on fairly intimate friendly rela- 
tionships at one time? More than five? Less than one thousand? What of 
the politician? The salesman? The "good mixer"? The inventive scholar? 

11. Under what conditions do some classes of Americans seem to be 
"short" of normal opportunities for friendly companionship and social inter- 
course? Men more than women? Children more than adults? Rural 
more than urban? Old more than young? Adolescents more than the mar- 
ried? How is this shortage due to education? To race? To occupation? 
To religion ? 

12. Under what conditions do some Americans seem to develop excessive 
appetites for sociable groupings, or for the more harmful kinds ? What are 
your standards of excess or harmf ulness ? Separately consider : urban vs. 
rural; rich vs. poor; immigrant Jews vs. native Americans; children (under 
twelve); adolescents; men and women in courtship periods; business men; 
women of leisure ; etc. 

13. Do gregariousness, good fellowship, amiability, and the like, play sub- 
stantial parts in American politics? Business? Worship? Why some cur- 
rent premiums on "good mixers" ? Is the "good mixer" usually very demo- 
cratic — toward some, or toward all ? 



FELLOWSHIP GROUPS 151 



FELLOWSHIP ASSOCIATIONS 

Men are recognized as gregarious, company-loving, "sociable" creatures. 
Many animals exhibit similar qualities, whilst others, except at certain 
seasons, are solitary by natural preference. 

Sociology can safely assume that gregariousness, like play and some 
other instincts, has evolved as a means to the preservation of the species. 
The need of group organizations for security, family-rearing, food- 
getting, and maintenance of order has produced, as a by-product at least, 
cravings for companionship quite apart from the needs of vocation, 
defense, and mating. 

Sociable or fellowship groupings are, therefore, found everywhere 
in human societies, though the motives for coming together are seldom 
those alone that arise from cravings for companionship.^ Dances, tavern 
gatherings, card parties, fairs, clubs, and the scores of other customary 
'means of aggregating those desiring companionship usually put forth other 
alleged claims on interest. Dances actually serve the ends of courtship 
for many, and those of recreational physical activity for some. The 
nightly gatherings at inn, tavern, or saloon have long served as centers 
for the diffusion of news, public opinion, and business information. In- 
tellectual competition in recreation, sometimes degenerating into the 
greedy competitions of gambling, are the pretexts of card-players, whose 
stronger, even if less conscious, motives are the pleasures of congenial 
companionship. Fairs, originating far back in the primitive markets 
established for dispersed peoples, serve in modern times fewer useful pur- 
poses, except in promoting friendly acquaintanceship and pleasing inter- 
course. Strong tendencies always exist in clubs, trade union locals, young 
people's church organizations, vacation residence, conventions, and even 
schools and offices, to subordinate the primary productive functions of 
these assemblages to pleasurable ends of "small group" or general socia- 
bility. 

Because of confusion of purposes — conscious or unconscious in socia- 
bility groupings — and because of the imitation and emulation that group 
contacts easily arouse, society has always encountered great difficulties 
in controlling fellowship groupings. The pleasures and stimulations of 
companionship easily lead to neglect of duties, waste of physical energy, 
illicit sex relations, gambhng, and excessive indulgence in stimulants. 
Against these degenerative tendencies of sociability groupings and 

^ Consult C. H. Cooley, Social Organization (Ch. 3 and 4, Primary Groups and 
Ideals). 



152 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

their agencies — dance halls, fairs, pleasure resorts, saloons, theaters, 
hotels, gay streets — the more constructive groups in society — military, 
vocational, religious,* regulative, and the family — wage almost incessant 
warfare. 

Specialized agencies of sociability seem to have evolved far more for 
men than for women and children. It seems probable that this results 
from the peculiar character of men's pursuits. Throughout those 
economic stages when hunting, fishing, and herding were the chief 
pursuits, men did much of their work far afield and much dispersed. 
Women were restricted largely to village residence. Men, returning from 
work, had fresh and keen appetites for social recreation. Even under 
contemporary conditions, sailors, lumbermen, herders, railway workers, 
and miners, after long periods of work, foregather in saloons, corner 
groceries, lodge halls, and other similar places to drink, gamble, exchange 
views, and renew old acquaintanceships. Because of the specialized and 
frequently commercialized character of the resorts used, anti-social by- 
products of these social gatherings are often the weeds that smother the 
crop. The higher regulative agencies wage perpetual warfare against 
the gaming, drinking, idleness, quarrelsomeness, venal politics, sexual 
vice, and irreligion that infest places of social recreation. 

Cravings for fellowship are not simple, but are rather to be compared 
with the cravings for various kinds of food manifested by normal in- 
dividuals.^ Ordinarily the outstanding cravings are for the most nearly 
alike — in sex, age, culture, interesting experience, and the like. But other 
desires appear. Under well known circumstances, men and women desire 
association with the opposite sex, only part of the time for reasons of 
actual or potential intimate afifection. Elderly people desire the fellow- 
ship of children, and children seek stimulating and informing adults. The 
well informed sometimes crave the companionship of the naive and simple, 
and the uninformed the stimulus of the traveled or well read. The social 
psychology of companionship, sociability, or fellowship seems as yet very 
inadequate to explain a variety of familiar social phenomena. When, for 
example, can gregariousriess or dependence upon one or another kind of 
friendly association become, in effect, . a disease ? What are the normal 
limits to the numbers with whom such associations can be maintained, 
having in view the other needs and responsibilities of life? 

The socialization of school life sometimes has as an objective the 
broadening of fellowship interests. Under any circumstances a school 
greatly intensifies that fellowship that is dependent upon close similarity 

=■ Consult K. Groos, The Play of Man (Ch. 4, Part II, Social Play). 



FELLOWSHIP GROUPS 153 

of qualities and interests. It is the nature of any school to assemble 
together for long periods persons nearly alike as to age, attainments, 
abilities, and outlook. The family group is comparatively heterogeneous, 
and so also, under all primitive conditions, are economic groupings. 

Although not yet clearly defined, it may be one needed purpose of the 
social education of schools to prevent persons from becoming excessively 
addicted to one kind of fellowship only— that of clique, gang, fraternity, 
or "set." A more adequate social psychology than we yet possess may 
show that the intense sociability specialization made possible and in fact 
enforced by school groupings may be harmful because of the extent to 
which it deprives its victims of tastes and interests in the social compan- 
ionship of elders, people of different circumstances or abilities, and the 
like. All have had occasion to deplore the snobbishness of many ordinary 
cqllegians, and to admire the democracy shown by a man like Roosevelt. 

Fellowship groupings only occasionally assume an institutional form, 
as do political, economic, and religious groupings. They are fluid, changing, 
personal. Some of the mechanisms — fairs, dances, parties — tend to be 
renewed indefinitely under commercial or voluntary leadership. Com- 
mercial agencies existing by virtue of ministering to these qualities may, 
indeed, survive over generations — the saloon, club, or "secret society" 
persisting largely to satisfy demands for congenial fellowship. 

Certain classes of persons seem to devote themselves excessively to 
the pursuit of pleasure closely bound up with agencies of fellowship. 
Adolescents, idle women, unstable elders, the esthetically sensitive, and 
the prosperous seem to be the chief patrons and promoters of those forms 
of association that are regarded by the more constructive members of 
society as anti-social and dissipating. In societies where wealth is 
abundant and security from external dangers is assured, the "luxurious" 
seem often to lead and a period of social degeneration sets in. (Recall 
periods in the history of Athens, Rome, France, England, Massachusetts.) 
A large proportion of the vices of sex, combat, and sumptuary excess are 
intimately associated with, if not the products of, sociability groupings. 
Fellowship is a source or accompaniment of sin and crime no less than of 
virtue and beneficence. 

FELLOWSHIP IN RURAL SOCIETIES ^ 

Agricultural or rural societies have heretofore in history nearly always 

been organized on the village community basis (Ch. VI). In America 

^For a valuable recent analysis see C. J. Galpin, Rural Life (Ch. 3, Physical In- 
fluences; and Ch. 4, Psychology of Farm Life). 



154 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the isolated farm household has developed widely, especially after security 
against Indians was established, and distance from markets necessitated 
that the settlers' first products should consist of live stock. 

It seems probable that the most harmful deprivation resulting from 
rural, isolation of households is in certain kinds of fellowship — or perhaps 
fellowship for certain types of members of the household. Important and 
complex problems have thus arisen in the American rural neighborhood. 
The following analysis is submitted chiefly for the purpose of suggesting 
problems for study: 

1. In what respects do American rural life conditions lessen the oppor- 
tunities, and starve the interests, of fellowship? Separately consider: 

(i) Men of family, from thirty to fifty years old, of inferior economic 
station, striving hard to accumulate property and not early habituated to 
conviviality. 

(2) Young married men able to get a job anywhere. Among these 
should be differentiated: (a) fellowship interests in congenial fellows of 
own sex, traditions, powers, etc.; (b) social interests in members of op- 
posite sex, where some kinds of fellowship instincts appear in conjunc- 
tion with real sex interests. 

(3) Young married women, same. 

(4) Married women, confined largely to companionship of husband 
and children, and deprived of companionship of other women of same 
age, and of other men. (Compare alleged social starvation of city school 
teachers, celibate, over thirty, compelled to fellowship chiefly with other 
women teachers and with children; also male bachelors, over thirty-five, 
in business.) 

(5) Children after school. 

2. Present conditions of rural life probably affect fellowship instincts 
thus in general : 

a. Unless families are abnormally small, children under eight find 
sufficient same-age contacts in the family group. 

b. Children from six^to fourteen find large amounts of fellowship in 
schools; but lone boys and girls from twelve to sixteen probably often 
miss sufficient "chums" or "gang" companions or intimates. 

c. Youths of both sexes, at an age for the beginning of courtship in- 
terests, are frequently deprived of sufficient opportunities for informal 
and unconstrained companionship, such as village life long afforded. 
Church, Grange, and dance hall help, but are too severely organized for 
informal contacts. 



FELLOWSHIP GROUPS 155 

d. Married men, from twenty to forty, if habituated to convivial or 
other gregarious hfe, find it difficult to procure normal male companion- 
ship, except on rare occasions. They make excuses to go to town, to 
the store, and to the blacksmith shop, largely to seek sociable inter- 
course. 

e. Married men, so prosperous as to have several hired men, and to 
find it necessary to give much time to supervision and business, probably 
suffer little from lack of fellowship. 

/. Married women from twenty-three to forty, companioned chiefly by 
small children, and getting little social intercourse with hard working 
husband, probably suffer acute loss in same age and sex fellowship. Es- 
pecially has this been so under frontier and "homesteading" conditions, 
where roads are bad, church and Grange groups small, and neighborhood 
enmities frequent. 

- g. Men and women of exceptional intellectual and esthetic appreciations 
often suffer lack of "congenial" companionship. Their fellowship in- 
stincts are often starved in village and "second class" urban environ- 
ments no less than in rural areas. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

(This interesting department of sociology has as yet no adequate readily 
accessible literature. But, besides the footnote references, these will prove 
suggestive. ) 

Devine, E. T. Misery and Its Causes (Ch. 10, Out of Friends). 
GiLLiN^ J. L. Poverty and Dependency (Ch. 31, Socialized Neighbor- 

liness). 
GiDDiNGS, F. Elements of Sociology (Ch. 8, Social Pleasure). 



PART II 
SOCIAL FORCES, PROCESSES, AND VALUES 



CHAPTER XIII 
SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

OUR sociological studies have thus far dealt primarily with the social 
groups, or large and small societies, that make up society as a whole. 
Herbert Spencer was fond of comparing society to an organism which 
needed organs of defense, food-getting, intercommunication, and the like. 
Such analogies have little scientific value except as scaffolds for thought 
structures. 

The study of social groups may be likened to the study of the organs 
of the body — their size, shape, evolution, functions, disorders. But we 
also find it helpful to study such physiological processes as circulation, 
digestion, innervation, metabolism, muscular action, and many others. In 
the same way it is profitable to study social processes. In all social 
groups we find cooperation and competition. In many we see expansion 
and institutionalization taking place. The processes now called social 
control and socialization are in perpetual rivalry with processes of individ- 
uation. The sociologist Ross has distinguished thirty or more processes 
that characterize many, if not all, kinds of social groups in various stages 
of their social evolution. 

Back of these social processes there are, of course, social forces or 
driving agencies, just as there are forces back of the physiological 
processes. Obviously we are using borrowed terms in speaking of social 
forces and processes — terms borrowed, usually, either from every-day 
life, or from the physical sciences. The social forces of hunger, love of 
companionship, desire for power, and the like are simply analogous to 
the forces of wind, steam, electricity, and gravity. For the present we 
must rely on such half-figurative terms. 

The ultimate social forces, like ultimate gravity, chemism, vitality, and 
mind, are not yet understandable by men. We recognize, differentiate, 
measure, and presently control some of their manifestations, however. 
We control the forces of falling water, fire, the storage of nutrition in 
seeds, and the educability of the young. Similarly we control those very 
real social forces that manifest themselves as desires — desires to escape 
danger (fear), desires for social fellowhip and harmony (love, friend- 
ship, sociability), and various desires for self-aggrandizement, for the dis- 
covery of more knowledge, for beauty, and for communion with deities. 

The character and strength of social forces, and the operation of social 
processes, are, like biological processes, conditioned by the physical 

159 



i6o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

universe. The earth and hght were here before men. Water, soil, air, the 
earth's measures of gravity, the kinds of plants, and available forms of 
physical energy are the stuff out of virhich life and mind and societies as 
we know them here are built. There are "optimum" limits to man's ex- 
pansion in numbers on this globe, just as certainly as there are optimum 
standards for his height and weight. Climate makes certain portions of 
the world's surface nearly uninhabitable, whilst absence of minerals makes 
other portions poor. 

Each one of us has had as wide a range of experience with social forces 
and processes as we have had with physiological processes — and per- 
haps they have sometimes remained just as obscure and mysterious. 
Nevertheless, some of both kinds lend themselves to observation and re- 
flective analysis. For example : 

1. Show how desires for food induce men, sometimes to compete, some- 
times to cooperate, and sometimes to form corporations. 

2. Show how sex desires underlie or motivate formation of family, storage 
of wealth, search for decoration, and fierce competitions. 

3. Show how religious fears, loves, and aspirations lead to migrations, 
persecutions, mental submission, and willingness to sacrifice life. 

4. What are the kinds of cooperation that may be distinguished in: fam- 
ilies ; trade unions ; gangs ; corporations ; social sets ; the crew of a vessel ; the 
pupils of a school; a political party. 

Are the relations between the factors stated below "cooperative" : buyer 
and seller; master and wage worker; lawyer and client; bank and depositors? 

Can we find "cooperations" within all groups? What are some forms that 
seem very instinctive? Some forms but slightly instinctive? 

5. What kinds of competition can be distinguished between : brothers ; class- 
mates; employees; shops in the same business; men in courtship? 

What forms of competition seem nearly instinctive? What forms seem 
but slightly so? 

Can we find competitions of one variety or another between members 
within all groups? What are some real distinctions between such different 
kinds of competition, as emulations, rivalries, destructive competitions, wars? 

6. What kinds of control of older or stronger or wiser members over those 
inferior in these respects do we find within these groups : families ; political 
parties; church congregations; village communities; bands; fellow employees? 

In what ways are processes of social control simplified within these groups : 
fraternities; clubs; congregations; nations? 

7. Historically what have been the processes by which members of the 
following groups have been made more social, humane, tolerant, or sympa- 
thetic: families; churches; conquerors; subjugated peoples; militant bands? 



SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES i6i 



8. Indicate establishment of routines, ranks, government, and other means 
of organization for the sake of efficiency within these groups: members of 
a large school; town meetings for government; members of a large church; 
employers and employees in large-scale industry. 

9. What aspects of domination are found under the following social rela- 
tions : father and children; husband and wife; men and women; conquerors 
and conquered; employers and employees; buyers and sellers; sellers and 
buyers; white race and black; learned and illiterate; property-owning and 
propertyless ? 

Indicate outcomes in forms of government, church organization, caste, 
ceremonials, suffrage, legal privilege. 

10. Indicate long strivings, and final achievements, sometimes after cen- 
turies, for specific forms of equalisation within these groups: offspring, in 
cases of inheritance of land or other wealth from parents; women and men 
in rights to enter occupations; various classes fighting for voting privileges; 
employees toward employers; black race toward white. 

Indicate what seem to you sound aspirations of political democracy for 
equalities: in suffrage; before the law; sharing in access to public prop- 
erty or agencies (roads, parks, schools); and in formation of public 
opinion. 

11. What are forms of specialization of vocation, cultural opportunities, 
and other responsibilities now prevalent within these groups: families; pro- 
ducers of agricultural foodstuffs; producers of professional services; ex- 
tenders of knowledge (research, invention) ? 

12. Using the words "instinct" and "instinctive" to include all "innate" 
or "original nature" impulses, tendencies, and dispositions to respond to 
environmental stimuli, or to act in particular ways, describe manifestations 
of the instincts that underlie: the play of small children; the athletic com- 
petitions of young men; the jealousy of rivals; the desire of youth to "use 
tools" in imitation of elders; avoidance of dangerous animals; the courtship 
of young men and women; maternal solicitude for young; desires for per- 
sonally owned property; military leadership; musical expression. 

What instincts found in some animals seem to have no counterpart among 
humans? What human instincts seem to be found in no animals? 

13. Describe some of the collective social activities that result when large 
numbers of men, living, and in some degree acting, together: 

a. Become convinced that they can not successfully resist a dangerous 
approaching enemy? 

b. Become convinced that a neighboring people, not strong, is possessed 
of much ill gotten wealth? 



i62 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

c. Learn of a new and unsettled region where means of subsistence are 
abundant ? 

14. When, in a population, considerable numbers of people strongly desire 
the ends described below, what are some resulting "social policies and 
practices" : 

a. Security of property? 
h. Expansion of knowledge? 

c. Conjugal fidelity? 

d. Protection and a fair start in life for helpless children? 

e. "Promotion" of beauty in public places? 

15. What are the "social forces" that move men: 
a. To migrate to new, distant, and strange lands? 
h. To revolt against governments? 

c. To go to war? 

d. To establish hospitals and other agencies for the care of the sick and 
helpless ? 

e. To form clubs, fairs, dancing parties, and crowds at resorts? 
/. To patronize the "movies"? 

g. To become converted to a new religion? 

16. What seem to you to have been historically the "social forces" that : 
a. Inspired Athenian public art? 

h. Gave the Renaissance to Europe ? 

c. Lured Spanish exploration in the New World? 

d. Eliminated slavery? 

e. Motivated medieval monasticism? 
/. Produced college fraternities? 

17. Is it easy to "teach" children to be afraid of: the dark; snakes; cows; 
dogs ; black men ; guns ? Is it equally easy to teach them to be afraid of : 
other children like themselves; inanimate objects seen in broad daylight; 
bacteria; books? What are processes by which we to-day "educate" the 
instincts of fear into right channels? Do highly civilized adults experience 
many fears — of witches, or of business failures ? Of wolves, or of pathogenic 
bacteria? Of murderers, or of corruptions of children's morals? Of dis- 
pleasure of God, or bad opinion of Mrs. Grundy? 

18. Upon what instinctive bases rest the mass sentiments, appreciations, 
and comprehensions underlying : 

a. French attitudes and activities toward Germany, 1870-191-;; ? 
h. "Fan" interests in professional baseball? 

c. The strength of Mohammedanism? 

d. The Anti-Saloon League? 

e. Tendency of young men to "go West"? 
/. Middle class desires for wealth? 



SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES 163 



THE SOCIAL FORCES ^ 

Forces lie back of all the phenomena of movement, change, and de- 
velopment in nature. We all experience the "force" of gravity, of heat, of 
the blowing wind, of an electric current. Moisture, warmth, and soil 
in right conjunction produce or set free the "forces" that cause seeds to 
expand into plants. Hunger, fear, and mating impulse are "forces" 
that drive animals into numberless forms of activity. 

Individual man is moved by many impulses from within, and he always 
encounters external conditions to which he must yield or adapt himself. 
We incessantly "evaluate" men in terms of their physical strength, per- 
sistence, love of gain, disposition to cooperate, qualities of "mixing," 
"force" of character, power of initiative, and the like. These express 
the "forces" of individuals — their powers of overcoming resistance, 
achieving results in the face of obstacles. Through one kind of effort 
or another, men cut pathways in the forest, kill enemies, rear children, 
make friends, write sonnets, calculate the sun's diameter. 

When many men are impelled by the same individual forces, we get 
the "social forces" — those accumulations of purpose and driving energy 
that give us mobs, armies, migrations, parties, denominations, and na- 
tions. The massing of desires chiefly turned in one direction produce 
cities, great religions, popular cultures, economic systems. 

Professor Ross insists, rightly, that the instincts of men constitute 
the original social forces. Only as men feel, think, and will alike, do we 
get group action of any kind. Combative impulses may cause two men 
to fight ; but when the people of one region, or party, or race are in large 
part combatively aroused toward the people of another region, party, or 
race, there come into action those manifestations of the social forces 
that we call war. When instinctive fears of danger, desires for security, 
and ambition for wealth become informed by knowledge, men collectively 
develop agencies to protect life, property, and reputation. They set in 
motion the collective activities that give us laws, courts, police protection, 
and sensitized public opinion. 

The social instincts are found among the thousands of inborn tenden- 
cies, impulses, and plasticities of man. These can properly be called 
"social" because they closely affect man's relations to his fellows. Ma- 
ternal love, conjugal love, and gregariousness are group-making instincts 

^Read E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Ch. 4, The Original Social Forces; 
and Ch. 5, The Derivative Social Forces). 



i64 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

that reach far down into certain portions of the animal world. So, also, 
are the instincts of individuals in certain circumstances to ' lead," and of 
others under similar circumstances to "follow." Instincts of cooperation 
in* defense, work, play, and care of the young are widely distributed. In 
a fundamental sense such group-breaking instincts as combativeness, 
jealousy, independence, solitariness, and competition are "social" also, 
though their immediate effects may be described as anti-social. 

Many social instincts seem largely to have developed only on the human 
plane. Paternal love, certain forms of sympathy like pity and ambition 
for others, and many forms of altruistic devotion are among these. The 
religious instincts are essentially social, and probably confined to human 
beings. The "time-binding" powers of men — that is, of slowly erecting 
social inheritances of beliefs, customs, arts, and institutions — combined 
with the imitativeness and suggestibility of children during their long 
infancy, serve greatly to modify — to suppress, reshape, or intensify — the 
original instincts. In fact, it is not easy to say of any particular habit, 
attitude, or power found in half-grown youth what part or quality of it 
is "native" and what learned or acquired since birth. 

The social instincts, then, undergo extensive modifications whilst in- 
fancy is ripening into effective manhood.^ Youths may be taught not to 
be afraid of harmless things. But a collective "fear" of witches or of 
banking corporations may be no less real a social force for the time 
being, though it have no genuine cause in reality. The original "property- 
owning" instincts doubtless contributed materially to the "survival" of 
the peoples that experienced or cherished them most strongly. But in 
their highly sophisticated forms in modern middle-class life they may 
give rise to social forces making for race suicide, or of oppression of class 
by class. The "dead hand" of the past may even reach incessantly for- 
ward into the nerves and brains of the babes and children of each new 
generation and so warp and stiffen instincts of fellowship, religion, and 
beauty as to give the widespread social perversions so often recorded 
in theological, political, and racial history. For it must not be forgotten 
that Oriental mysticisms, medieval persecutions, African voodooisms, 
and interracial hatreds represent, probably, "trained perversions" of 
instincts no less normal and wholesome than those possessed by the chil- 
dren in our kindergartens. 

Man early made far-reaching beginnings in the "control" of natural 
forces. He domesticated animals and captured fire. He seized upon 

' See W. McDougall, Social Psychology (Ch. 3, The Principal Instincts and Pri- 
mary Emotions of Man). 



SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES 165 

chemical action in the making of iron, pottery, and dyes. Water and wind 
power, steam and electricity, have been harnessed. No less evident is 
the subjugation to useful ends of the social forces. From the be- 
ginnings of intelligent human life, elders and natural leaders have shaped 
the appreciations, ideals, beliefs, and comprehensions of children in pre- 
determined directions — sometimes bad, but probably more often good 
than bad, else there would be no survivors to-day to read the tale. Thus 
were formed within groups collective beliefs, taboos, standards, ideals. 
Thus man became massed in desire and purpose to fight enemies, worship 
God, seek new lands, expand knowledge, frame legislation, seek the heaven 
of righteousness. 

With advance of civilization educational policies became more far-reach- 
ing, comprehensive, purposive, and, let us hope, more securely based on 
genuine social values. We try to universalize effective fears of bacteria, 
love of knowledge, appreciations of the beautiful, and desires for social 
righteousness. Perhaps we are not clear enough yet as to social values to 
know what "social forces" we should set in motion so as to insure personal 
liberty, interracial cooperations, derogation of war, and unification of re- 
ligious creeds. 

But whenever and wherever parties or sects divide men somewhat 
equal, only private or sectarian educative efforts are permitted to deal 
with the causal things that are thus devisive. Public schools are sternly 
told to keep "hands off" controverted issues — at least, until one party 
feels secure in its possession of the machinery of control. Then it insists 
that only "the true doctrine" shall be taught in these schools. Future 
societies, more sure of the potency of objective reality and scientific in- 
terpretations than are we will probably be less solicitous of particular 
beliefs, animosities, and affections. They will be prepared to give some 
release to social forces once largely held in bondage. 



SOCIAL PROCESSES ^ 

Social processes are those forms of movement, change, reaction, or 
tendency that are exhibited within many social groups — in one form 
or another, perhaps in all. Since social groups are composed of indi- 
vidual men, women, and children, these processes, naturally, are the col- 
lective modes of action of these individuals. All persons in greater 
or less degree do these things with, or to, themselves or their fellows: 

'Read at least some chapters from the comprehensive analysis in Part III of 
E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology. 



i66 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

they change to their own purposes when they can, and they yield when 
they must to, their geographic environment — environmental adaptation; 
they seek to make the most of themselves — individuation; they fit in 
with their fellows — socialization; they work together — cooperation; they 
work in rivalry or against — competition and conflict; they yield to others 
and force others to yield to them — social control; they lead, dominate, 
and exploit others or follow, submit to, and are preyed upon by others — 
oligarchy; they strive to secure some measure of equality, including cor- 
rection of artificial handicaps, and mitigation of natural handicaps, for 
themselves or others — democracy; they seek to crystallize into enduring 
forms their achievements in organization or process — institutionalization; 
they elaborate systems of shaping the young for civilized adult life — 
education. 

Many other social processes of greater or less moment can be dis- 
cerned. In complex societies many functions come to be performed on 
a relative impersonal basis through what can well be called processes of 
commercialization. Like other organisms, social groups under some cir- 
cumstances grow or evolve toward larger or more complex forms; and 
under other circumstances they ossify or decay. Transformation of form 
or function may take place. All of the terms used in describing social 
processes are, it will be observed, derived from the vernacular, and are 
therefore in greater or less degree figurative, if not insidiously analogical. 
Nevertheless, in the absence of more accurate terminology, it is not amiss 
to describe processes last referred to, of which numberless concrete ex- 
amples can be found, by such words as expansion, ossification, decadence, 
and transformation. 

The more important social processes are those that have characterized 
nearly all social groups through the ages. Cooperation, for example, in 
some degree, and of some variety characterizes the membership of 
families, nations, trade unions, and religious denominations. Economic 
cooperation binds together master and employee, buyer and seller. Under- 
lying instincts of cooperation are found in all human beings, less definite 
but more adaptable, than those found among ants, bees, and beavers. 
The progress of civilization is characterized, among other things, by the 
widening social areas within which one or another variety of cooperation 
is essential. The process of cooperation is, indeed, deep-rooted in na- 
ture, having its analogies in all of organic life. 

Competition is another social process. It, too, rests on foundations of 
instinct, and pervades not only mankind but, in one form or another, 



SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES 167 

the entire organic world. Plants compete with members of their own 
species, as well as with those of others, for soil, sunlight, and pollination. 
Except as limited by geographic remoteness and by cooperations within 
groups, animals compete for food, mates, and safety of progeny. The 
pressures and exigencies of competition not only incessantly put premiums 
upon protective devices such as horns, speed, and storage (of food), 
but also cause various forms of "cooperation" (or mutual aid) to have 
"survival values." The "survival of the fit," as forced on a species or 
people, may well mean the survival of those that form the most effective 
social groups — families for care of children, business groups for eco- 
nomic production, and nations for administration of justice and insur- 
ance of security from external enemies. 

Domination is a third almost universal social process. Differences of 
age, sex, bodily strength, mental strength, courage, and other inherited 
qualities are found in nearly all social groups. Custom also creates 
differences of rank, education, manners, wealth, dress, and speech. It 
is instinctive in all to try to assert ascendancy over others, and, no less, 
it is instinctive, under pressure of perceived necessity, for men to yield 
submission to the dominant; especially if thereby some "values" — security, 
approval, knowledge, wealth — are realized. The process of domination 
gives the social relations of conquerors to conquered, masters to slaves, 
high caste to low caste, overbearing male to submissive female, dominat- 
ing parent to child, wealth-holder to propertyless, white to black, erudite 
to illiterate. Autocracy, oligarchy, caste, rank, racial ascendancy, are all 
manifestations of its products. 

Many forms of domination are exercised by naturally strong indi- 
viduals — strong in mind, body, or will. But often individuals not so 
strong learn to act in concert, and thus develop group strength and group 
domination. Thus do the individually weak triumph over the individually 
strong. Perhaps, as Nietzsche fears, slazw morality thus overcomes super- 
man morality.^ 

But the process of equalization certainly follows in all advanced so- 
cieties. Men will not be forever dominated — or, rather, they will be 
dominated only intelligently and by virtue of their own wills. Even slaves 
combine in revolt. Serfs at times extort recognition of rights, laws, 
characters from the conquerors. Limits are set to the wills of autocrats, 
oligarchs, aristocrats, high castes. The struggle for democracy begins. 
Men insist on equality before the laws, equalization of the burdens of 

^ See his plausible contentions in his Genealogy of Morals. 



i68 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

taxation, equality of rights to select governors and to approve or disap- 
prove policies. Women seek equalization of opportunity vi^ith men to 
seek salvation, hold property, vote, or enter professions. The state steps 
in to guarantee children equal rights with adults to life, and to a "fair 
start in life." Blacks strive for equal rights with whites. Philanthro- 
pists seek to assure to the "illegitimately born" rights to name, recognition, 
and paternal care. 

Other forms of democracy, meaning other forms of equalization or 
offset of disabilities, are sought. We talk vaguely to-day about religious 
democracy or democracy of worship. What is meant by democracy of 
educational opportunities ? 

No considerable number of well informed persons seem exactly to 
agree as to the meaning of "industrial democracy." But no one can 
deny the tremendous vitality of the aspirations, and possibly ideals, com- 
prehended under that term. 

Socialization takes place in all groups, but especially in those that are 
small enough to assure much personal intimacy. Every associate group 
in which one has membership becomes a powerful school of conduct — • 
but, as a rule, only for that type of group. The family for young chil- 
dren, the gang, clique, and school for those in their teens, the crew, 
fraternity, company, set, for adolescents and young adulthood — these are 
all agencies of socialization. So also are church, army, political party, and 
university. 

A good school has its standards — two kinds, usually, set by students 
and faculty respectively, and the entrants are steadily drilled into con- 
formity. But the type behaviors established in the school group may have 
very little useful relation to those required for the family, the shop, the 
church, or the employment group. 

Within every group, as soon as the most elementary stages of growth 
are past, begins the process of organisation. Division of labor, taboos, 
rules, laws, development of instrumental mechanisms, all take place. 
Rituals, ceremonials, government, initiations, promotions, and specialized 
service are the accompaniments of this process. 

All social processes have their roots in that which most affects children 
— education. In its broadest sense education is always operative, in 
youth and in age. But its potency is greatest when body and brain 
are most plastic. Therefore the foundations and the corrections of all 
social processes are to be found in their early educative stages. 



SOCIAL FORCES AND PROCESSES 169 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Baldwin, J. M, Social and Ethical Interpretation (Ch. 11, The Social 
Forces). 

Crile, G. W. Man — An Adaptive Mechanism (Ch. i, Adaptation to 
Environment). 

Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 2, The 
Bearing of Evolution on Social Problems). 

Kelsey, C. The Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 8, Race Differences). 

Ross, E. A. The Foundations of Sociology (Ch. 7, The Social Forces). 

Simons, A. M. Social Forces in American History (Ch. 24, Triumph 
and Decadence of Capitalism). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. i, Fundamental Notions). 

Todd, A. J. Theories of Social Progress (Ch. 14-15, Economic Inter- 
pretations of History). 

Turner, F. J. The Frontier in American History (Ch. 12, Social Forces 
in American History). 



CHAPTER XIV 
GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

AS a child you probably lived "close to nature" in many ways. The 
hardness of stones, the softness of grass, the lure of running water, 
the white wonder of the snow, were more real than they have ever been 
since. A New England June, or California March, have made their 
peculiar appeals. As observer and reader you have felt that men are 
greatly shaped by the climates and topographies in which they were 
reared, and that their vocations are largely necessitated by their geographic 
environments. Huntington thinks that if a thousand Norwegian families 
settled in Egypt, the third generation would have lost some of the Norse 
qualities and would have taken on some of the qualities common to 
tropical dwellers. H, similarly, a thousand African families were settled 
in Norway, the third generation, probably as black and negro-like in 
appearance as ever, would nevertheless show some effects of the severe, 
perhaps tonic, climate. Massachusetts, southern Indiana, and Vermont 
are said to have given far more than their due proportions of men of 
eminence— writers, scientists, teachers, statesmen. Why? Some say be- 
cause the hard conditions in those regions first drilled the boys in hard 
work, and then forced them to seek outlets elsewhere. To what extent 
were your people and yourself the products of geographic conditions? 

1. What were the conditions of the material environment which surrounded 
you in childhood and adolescence — climate, topography, means of locomotion, 
dangerous animals, and bacteria? What factors in that environment were 
marked incentives to play, and to growth of basic experience — woods, 
streams, seashore, dells, hills or mountains, wild animals, domestic animals, 
glades, rivers ? Does it seem to you probable that some kinds of environment 
make far larger appeal to instincts of "habitat appreciations" than others? 
Analyze elements in this for Vermont vs. western Nebraska; Louisiana vs. 
Utah; Scotland vs. lowlands of India. Is it your experience that natives, 
never having been absent, love the high mountain, the sandy desert, the 
craggy seashore, or the tropical verdure amidst which they have been reared? 
Or do peoples reared on flatlands half-consciously long for mountains and 
seashore? Do mountaineers long for the wide outlooks of the plainsman? 

2. In what respects does it seem to you that the long, cold winters of the 
northern half of the north temperate zone contribute over the centuries to 

170 



GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 171 

valuable social qualities? How do these operate for storing food; for caring 
for domestic animals ; for spending long evenings indoors with fire heat ; for 
finding winter work; for prolonged intercourse between children and parents? 

3. What experience have you had with the winter diversions of rural 
children and elders in moderate climates? Desert climates? On seashores? 
On the plains ? In regions without water or ice ? How do these compare " 
with diversions of peoples in similar regions, but living under urban condi- 
tions ? 

4. The occupational necessities of men are largely conditioned by geo- 
graphic environment. What prevailing characteristics have you witnessed 
in these groups, largely attributable to the climatic and other material con- 
ditions under which they work : prairie farmers ; sheep or cattle husbandmen 
on ranges; land-transport workers (railways especially) ; sea-transport work- 
ers; office workers in large cities; mill hands; desert nomads? 

5. What are some prevalent beliefs as to possible geographic causes of : 

a. The blackness of torrid-zone dwellers? 

b. The former warlike ferocity of North American Indians east of the 
Rocky Mountains? 

c. The seafaring tendencies of Norwegians, Japanese, English, Phoenicians ? 
• d. The dissensions of the ancient Greek states? 

e. The fertility of southwest Asia in religious systems? 

/. The submissiveness of the native Egyptian? 

g. The "artistic sensibilities" of the Latins? 

h. The fatalism of the Chinese? 

i. The "democracy" of the Mississippi Valley? 

y. The superstitions of the Japanese? 

6. What are certain regions of the earth where any considerable popu- 
lation seems precluded by: 

a. Low temperatures ? 

b. Prevailing high temperatures? 

c. Prevailing low rainfall? 

d. Prevailing high rainfall? 

e. Prevailing poverty of soil? 

/. Prevailing absence of mineral resources? 

7. To what causes do you attribute the densities of population of : 

a. Massachusetts? 

b. Central England? 

c. Java? 

d. Valley of the Ganges ? 

8. What are commonly believed to be the effects on physical hardihood of : 

a. Mountain residence ? 

b. Seafaring occupations? 



172 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

c. Factory work? 

d. Mining? 

e. Urban residence? 

/. Tillage of soil in tropical valleys? 

MATERIAL ENVIRONMENT^ 

The social forces that move men are invariably cribbed, cabined, and 
confined by material environments. Indeed, these forces had their origins 
largely in the earlier stages of ancestral man's adaptation to his environ- 
ments. 

Men have not yet found ways of living in large numbers in the Sahara, 
Labrador, or Brazil. Only food enough to support a very limited popu- 
lation can be drawn from the immense ocean areas. According to 
Huntington, only in some half-dozen small areas of the earth's surface 
are climatic conditions favorable to the development of man's maximum 
energy — that is, as man is now biologically constituted. Nevertheless, man 
seems to be more wide ranging — that is, at least somewhat adapted 
to more different kinds of environment — than any other animals, 
unless it be his chosen companion, the dog. Huntington, again, thinks 
a high degree of civilization can not be produced or even maintained, by 
peoples permanently living in central Africa, northern Siberia, Arabia, 
or India. 

Climate and soil, then, affect the growth of each child and, in the long 
run, they also profoundly affect societies. We readily assume that plains- 
men and mountaineers will be unlike ; and that dwellers amidst polar 
snows will differ greatly from the nearly naked peoples of the torrid zone. 
Desert and steppe give one type of human product; whilst seashore and 
small island give something very different. 

Primitive man lives close to the earth and is much affected by the 
vagaries of climate. The processes of adaptation that each person must 
make are such that they become part of the social inheritance. Some of 
them, by processes of selection, doubtless become hereditary. Darkness 
of skin seems to be inherent in the natives of tropical regions and is 
somewhat acquired by each white man living there. Mongols rarely 
wash, whilst Kanucks fairly live in warm tropical waters. Slightness of 
physical structure characterizes many Orientals, and massiveness of build 
many of the Nordic peoples. 

History teems with suggestive examples of the apparent making and 

* Every reader of this chapter is advised to read also E. C. Semple, Influences of 
Geographic Environment , especially Ch. i, 3, and 4. 



GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 173 

marring of men by geographic environment. The fighting, hard-living 
nomads of the Arabian and Mongohan deserts have again and again 
organized their bands and swept down as conquerors on to the fertile 
valleys — Nile, Euphrates, Ganges, Hoang-Ho, Volga. There they often 
remained as rulers, until so ennervated that new invasions of hardy 
folk could shake them from their thrones. 

The fiords of Scandinavia have often produced barbarian bands of 
seamen and fighters so strong that well established states have many 
'times fallen before them. The forests of central Europe, and probably 
the neighboring mountain ranges too, have been nurseries of much that 
we now count as basic to our culture. 

It is easy to infer that the broken coasts of Greece, the tonic, colorful 
atmosphere, the varied topography, and the frequent barriers were all 
potent factors in producing old Grecian democracy, culture, and interest 
in physical hardihood and grace. Admirers of Japan now delight to 
point out the numerous parallels between that country and Greece in 
topography, occupational outlets, and incentives to creative effort of 
all kinds. 

But modern civilization alters the scale and character of economic 
achievement, war, use of natural forces, and division of labor. Millions 
can now live on the poor soil of Massachusetts or in central England 
because commerce makes possible intensive production of manufactured 
articles to be sent to the ends of the earth for food, fuel, and other raw 
materials. The conquerors in possible future wars may be helped more 
by possessions of resources of steel, coal, oil, and wheat than by a multi- 
tude of hardy warriors bred to the saddle and the pursuit of game. The 
fishing fleet may be the best source of men prepared to operate sub- 
marines ; but it takes a country with great steel works and controlling 
much oil fuel to provide the submarines. 

The Mississippi Valley — "the Valley of Democracy" one social artist 
calls it — is now the richest valley in the world, not because of inspiring 
topography, or climate propitious to maximum output of energy, but 
because of soil, rainfall, fuel, and means of transportation. It is easily 
possible that within a few generations the Amazon should be a still richer 
human hive — even though the climate is so adverse. Half the people of 
the world now live, it is said, under the monsoons — not because the climate 
is admirable, but because only there can soil and rain produce food 
for nearly a billion bodies. 

In his earlier stages of evolution — ^but after some degree of settled 
habitation had been reached — man was obviously much shaped by his geo- 



174 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

graphic environment. Some causative factors are obscure. What gives 
whiteness to the Nordic, blackness to the negro? Tahness to the Scot, 
shortness to the south Chinese ? It is easier to understand why monogamy 
should grow strong in cold temperate zone regions, why religious sys- 
tems should originate in southwestern Asia, and why tillers of rich allu- 
vial valley soils rarely fought well in battle. Arab honor, Indian stoicism, 
Polynesian morality, and African submissiveness have certainly been 
fostered, if not produced, by the conditions under which these men could 
win from nature support, security, and comfort. 

But as ready communication contracts the world ; as men weave end- 
lessly back and forth over all seas and lands ; as culture spreads from 
every center of origin; and as men learn still further how to control 
nature to their own ends, the influences of material environment on social 
forces will greatly change. 

CONTROL OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENTS 

The progress of civilization renders man somewhat independent of 
geographic conditions.^ We can think of a modern man of means being 
quite at home in the hotels of Denver, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, or Spitzen- 
berg. Artificial heat in one place, and fans in another, would adapt 
temperature to his needs. He would wear heavy fur clothing in one 
place and light cotton in another. Cold-storage transportation would 
assure him his favorite foods in any one of these places. 

Many primitive inventions were, indeed, designed to overcome the 
difficulties presented by climate, soil, and water. The discovery of fire 
enabled man to provide for the time a temperature independent of that 
given by nature. The building of shelters had the same end in view. 
Boats made possible movement on water independent of swimming. The 
domestication of animals giving milk and wool made desert habitation 
practicable. 

Modern science carries these and other similar inventions much farther. 
Steam heat is simply a more serviceable form of fire warming. But 
artificial ice for the tropics is an innovation. Farmers in cold regions 
can now have eggs, green vegetables, and even tropical fruits in the 
coldest of winters, owing to cold storage and cheap transportation. Travel 
in desert and over mountains is not the body-racking process it once was. 

Nevertheless, in a more fundamental sense, man is still very much the 
creature of his material or geographic environment. We have no ex- 
*E. A. Ross, Principles (Ch. 7, The Influence of Geographic Environment). 



GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 175 

pectation that large populations will ever inhabit Mongolia. More than 
one third of the land of California will probably not be worth one dollar 
an acre during the next century. British officers in India dare not try 
to rear their young children in the lowlands. It is doubtful whether a 
genuine republic has ever flourished among tropical peoples. The half 
of the human race that live in or near southeastern Asia seem to rise 
above the soil with extrefae difficulty. The strong industrial and capital- 
accumulating peoples have thus far organized themselves largely around 
supplies of coal and iron. Ellsworth Huntington ^ plausibly contends that 
there are only four considerable regions in the world where climatic con- 
ditions — optimum combinations of temperatures, humidities, and baro- 
metric changes — permit "human energy" to attain its maximum de- 
velopment. 

Geographic factors of environment are in some cases easy of compre- 
hension, and in others they are still obscure. Soil productivity explains 
the dense populations of the Nile and the Hoang-Ho, of Flanders and the 
Mississippi Valley. Except for the possible discovery of mineral wealth, 
we do not expect Labrador, Morocco, or northern Alaska soon to acquire 
population sufficiently numerous, or of such diversified interests, as to 
necessitate a complex social organization. If Palestine is to support a 
large population, it may have to specialize in manufacture, as have Massa- 
chusetts and Scotland. 

Can the tropical peoples overcome their present handicaps and join 
the march of civilization? Or can white workers colonize and develop 
the rich food-producing resources of the Congo and Amazon, now that 
control of bacterial diseases is almost assured? Can children be so 
reared in the tropics as to possess in adult years the moral and physical 
fiber required in citizens of a complex social order? Hunting, the pas- 
toral life, seafaring, and tillage have heretofore seemed to produce the 
"strong peoples" of the world; can we expect mining and manufacturing 
and trade also to produce virile progenies ? 

Man's dependence on his environment is changing in certain respects. 
As intimated above, he is becoming increasingly independent of it as 
regards utilisation. He can create artificial climates, bring his food 
from all parts, and articially facilitate his locomotion. But on the side 
of production he must follow his work to the habitat that is most favor- 
able to it. Tens of thousands of men must now spend nearly all their 
days at sea, or in mountain cafions, or in coal mines, or within factory 

^ Read his Cii'ilisation and Climate and The Red Man's Continent for a large 
variety of interesting observations in this field. 



176 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

walls. Negroes do not live in Chicago by preference for its climate, any 
more than New England reared youths by preference spend years in 
Brazil or the Yukon. Italian peasants follow the lure of work into 
Pennsylvania coal mines or Mesaba Range iron mines for exactly the 
same reasons that the peasants of Devonshire and Massachusetts took 
to seafaring. The graduate of a New York engineering college may 
"settle down" in Pittsburgh, South Africa, or anywhere along the moun- 
tain ranges that stretch from Alaska to Patagonia. The coolie laborers 
of China, pressed by hard necessity, are willing to abandon families, and 
to seek work anywhere between the poles, in congested city or on lonely 
mountainside. The younger sons of middle- and upper-class British 
families have carried government and trade to all lands, and not less those 
yet short in civilization. From whatever motives, they have in fact 
carried "the white man's burden," and Kipling can well say for them: 
"If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full." 

EVOLUTIONAL ASPECTS * 

Man's ancient ancestors were probably in some ways much more re- 
sponsive to geographic environment than is man to-day. It is the belief 
of most ethnologists that the species that we call man differentiated from 
an anthropoid species from which also differentiated several of the 
simian species now found in tropical parts of the world. Our ancestry 
at some period was forced to live in a harsher environment than the 
tropical forests, and gradually the capture of game became one of its 
engrossing pursuits. Many thousands, perhaps many hundreds of thou- 
sands, of years of this roving, hunting life in desert, forest, and perhaps 
even in arctic regions, gave our species, through processes of gradual 
selective adaptation, many of the peculiar organs and qualities that char- 
acterize it to-day, such as erect posture, great flexibility of hand and 
arm, large brain, much disposition to use tools, and various capacities 
for working in codperation. 

Throughout a very long period in racial evolution, commonly called 
the paleolithic, man, no doubt, used as tools only rough wooden imple- 
ments and crudely shaped stones. During this era he did not till the soil 
nor make any extensive use of domestic animals. He seems to have 
roamed very freely over all portions of the accessible world — which 
certainly included Asia, Europe, and Africa. It is not certain that he 

■* See C. Kelsey, Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 3, The Control of Nature). 



GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 177 

reached the Americas thus early, nor do we know when he reached the 
islands to the south and east of Asia. 

According to much expert opinion, this long low-savage period was 
succeeded by another — the so-called neolithic — in which much more fin- 
ised tools and weapons of stone were made; and it is a safe inference 
that elaborate use of tools of wood, bone, and other perishable materials 
was made, even though all examples of these have perished. During 
this time settled residence began, at least in some of the more fertile and 
protected valleys like those of the Nile and Euphrates. Possibly also more 
or less settled residence took place in the neighborhood of certain moun- 
tains and caves, as well as on islands. The domestication of such animals 
as sheep, horses, cows, and others made necessary eitker settled residence 
or a well organized nomadism such as is still found in the desert regions 
of Asia. Later the invention of bronze, and still later of iron, tools, 
made for more settled residence and the gradual development of centers 
of manufacture and of trade. From this period dates what we know as 
the higher barbarism and civilization. Geographic environment was, 
obviously, through all these periods a very large factor in determining 
the kinds of human beings that could survive, as well as in shaping the 
numberless customs that were evolved and perpetuated because they also 
had a distinct "survival value" — that is, they contributed to the prolonged 
existence and the development of families adopting them, whilst their 
absence tended to the speedy elimination of those rejecting them. 

It is easy to understand how, if for many thousands of years men had to 
live by cooperative fighting against fierce beasts and to get their food 
by cooperative capture of speedy and often formidable animals, our 
ancestors became a fighting people. It is easy also to understand how, 
as populations increased, the occupants of one region should move in 
bands against those of another for hunting grounds, and fierce fighting 
should inevitably result. The best organized, best led, healthiest, and 
naturally strongest groups would win out in this type of contest, just as 
certainly as .similar qualities are conducive to winning in modern foot- 
ball, or even in competing business enterprises. All early history is a rec- 
ord of the incessant struggles between the mobile and fiercely fighting 
tribes, of desert, forest, and rugged seashore against the settled and rela- 
tively peaceful tillers of the soil of the great valleys or the inhabitants of 
trading cities. The successive invasions of the valleys of the Nile, Eu- 
phrates, and Hoang-Ho by fierce tribes from desert and mountain are 
only a few of the examples on record. The Aryan-speaking invaders 



178 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of the Italian peninsula, the British Isles, the Grecian peninsula and 
even India, came out of a savage or barbarian north in which hunting 
and cattle raising were the chief occupations. The various Gothic peo- 
ples who later overran the Roman Empire, and the still later Normans 
who conquered and exacted tribute from nearly all of the then civilized 
world, were similar products of harsh climate and hard living conditions. 
Long after the beginnings of the Christian era, from the hive of central 
Asia came the Mongols, the extent and violence of whose ravages 
seem to have no parallel in recorded history. Later still, from the 
deserts of Arabia came the conquering pov/er of Islam, which barely 
stopped short of subduing all of what was then civilized in the Western 
World. 

The progress of science and invention created new conditions of 
adaptation to environment. The development of shipping early made 
possible the magnificence of the Phoenicians and later gave power to the 
Normans. It was shipping, again, that lay at the base of the wealth 
of the city-states of medieval Italy, as well as of Portugal, Spain, Holland, 
and England. The search for shipping routes to the Eastern World led 
to the discovery of America, the long era of colonization from Europe, 
which is not yet at an end, and the exploitation (in the bad as well as 
in the good sense of the term) of the mineral, vegetable, and even human 
wealth of distant countries.^ 

The new wealth and opportunities were too much for some of the 
countries concerned. Spain and Portugal declined rather than thrived 
in the new competition. France and Holland made great achievements, 
only to fall back before a more powerful seafaring people. Great Britain 
became the world's sea power, colonizer, and arbiter of commerce. 

The age of machinery creates new conditions of success and failure in 
geographic adaptation and competition.^ Coal and iron have become for 
the modern world the touchstones of certain kinds of large group or na- 
tional success. Great Britain laid the foundations of its world power 
through navigation, but has perpetuated them by becoming for a long 
time the chief manufacturing and trading people of the world. Coal 
and iron have been the chief factors in the modern industrial develop- 
ment, not only of Great Britain, but also of the United States, Belgium, 
France, Germany, and, in a measure, of Japan. The largest problems 
of social economy now center in the conservation of the people who are 
striving to live by manufacture and trade. These pursuits compel men 

^ See A. J. Todd, Theories of Social Progress (Ch. 9, Geographic Determinists). 
" Compare W. S. Harwood, The New Earth. 



GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 179 

to live in the highly artificial environments of cities, indoor work and 
incessant application to minute processes that tax hand and eye. 

Whether over many generations man can well adapt himself to these new 
conditions of geographic environment has always been a chief problem in 
social evolution. The building of huts, the making of fire, and the develop- 
ment of weapons whereby to fight other animals were among the beginnings 
of this conscious control of nature to his own ends. The domestication 
of animals, the tillage of the soil, the invention of the wheeled vehicle, 
and the navigation of waters by means of boats, were among the next 
great steps. Irrigating ditches, level highways, mines, and the various 
processes of fabrication take their turn as great achievements to be 
recorded. Civilized man at his best develops a very large degree of con- 
trol of his environment. If the outdoor climate is severely cold, he 
creates indoor warmth in which to live and work ; if it be too warm, he 
develops artificial currents of air and other devices. He clears forests, 
exterminates wild animals, and patiently breeds to high standards of 
productivity such aids as grains, fruits, and animals. He brings science 
to bear in the elaboration of steel, pottery, and other materials. In 
synthetic chemistry, economic bacteriology, eugenics, and the completer 
harnessing of natural forces are to be read the stupendous recent aspira- 
tions of man more completely than ever to control nature for human 
well-being. 

Western science enables its possessors to dominate the Orient, at least 
as far as material wealth is concerned. What the possession of this 
wealth will mean to the survival and multiplication of Western stocks is 
not yet certain — or, rather, there already appear portentous signs that it 
may mean the same fate that overtook the slave-holding Greeks and 
Romans, whose slaves, racially speaking, succeeded to the permanent in- 
heritance of those once great peoples. 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Branom, M. E. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. 1-5, The Practical 
Nature of Geography and Its Relation to Other Subjects). 

Brigham, a. P. Geographic Influences in American History. 

Brinton, D. G. The Basis of Social Relations (Ch. 10, The Influence 
of the Geographic Environment). 

Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics (Ch. 3, The Factors of 
Agricultural Production). 



i8o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Crile, G. W. Man, An Adaptive Mechanism (Ch. i, Adaptation to En- 
vironment). 

Galpin, C. J. Rural Life (Ch. i, Physical Influences; Ch. 2, Psy- 
chology of Farm Life). 

Giles, G. M. J. Climate and Health in Hot Countries (Part II, Sec- 
tion i). 

HuLBERT, Archer B. The Paths of Inland Commerce ("Yale Chronicle 
Series"). 

Huntington, Ellsworth. The Red Man's Continent ("Yale Chronicle 
Series"). 

Parmelee, M. Criminology (Ch. 4 and 5, Influences of Physical En- 
vironment on Crime). 



CHAPTER XV 
INDIVIDUATION AND SOCIALIZATION 

THOUGH men, women, and children nearly always live, work, and play 
in social groups, it is one of the most general facts of experience 
that such membership is by no means always agreeable or even tolerable. 
Every growing child has at times thought himself greatly abused by his 
'family; and very frequently he has, on reaching adolescence, "run away" 
to become his own master — as he fondly thinks. Nearly every citizen 
at times bitterly denounces "the government," the church, or the industrial 
system of which he is, perforce, a part. Americans, nurtured often under 
conditions of the frontier, greatly resent the enactment of game laws, 
restrictions on wood-cutting in public forests, and compulsory service 
in putting out forest fires. The adolescent, confronted by conventions 
of dress and chaperonage, and under incessant pressure to be cleanly, 
industrious, friendly, and orderly, thinks that all society is in conspiracy 
to deprive him of his freedom. 

Nature is obviously responsible for many of our troubles here. For 
it is nature, in one way, that bids each man build himself strong and self- 
assertive. But it is nature operating along somewhat different lines 
that forces him to be cooperative, to submit, to be of the herd. 

But human beings find it necessary to reinforce nature in its seemingly 
dual purposes. Education must make the individual strong in his own 
right, but also harmonious, helpful, self-sacrificing. Every person is 
aware in his own experience of the endless conflicts resulting. They are 
the ever-fertile source of the problems of ethics and lawmaking. They 
furnish numberless themes for writers of fiction and poetry, for dramatist 
and painter. Even among the deities of Greek and Teuton, submission 
to the established order was, according to mythology, a thing hardly to 
be endured. 

1. What are frequent examples of revolt against "group control" shown 
by : boys from twelve to sixteen ; young people in love with others of opposite 
sex of widely different religious, racial, or economic levels ; workers em- 
ployed in large corporations? 

2. In what respects does it appear to you that the "individuality" of these 
persons is excessively repressed or deformed by the social pressures to. which 
they are subject: the child of the sternly Puritan family; the working-girl 
in a large factory ; the dull pupil in a city school ; the spiritually sensitive 
man in an army in war-time ; the young member of an old established church ? 

3. The young are often very radical, the old very conservative. What 

i8i 



i82 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

are probable causes ? "To be a socialist at twenty is evidence of a generous 
heart; but to be one at forty shows a weak head." Comment. 

4. Give examples out of your own experience of "struggles to assert your 
individuality." What are the kinds of control against which adolescents 
often struggle thus ? Separately consider : laws of the country ; conventions 
of the young; the conventions most approved by elders; the restrictions 
imposed by place of residence; the hampering imposed by present-day social 
organization; restrictions of employment or poverty. 

5. In what ways and to what extent does modern art — novels, poetry, 
drama, music, painting — appear to you to be the product chiefly of men 
and women antagonistic to one social restriction or another in the world 
about them? Historically, are they usually right or wrong in their revolt, 
having in view the larger social well-being? 

6. Do times of peace, or times of war and public danger, furnish the 
greater opportunities for critics of existing customs and social control — that 
is, for those who favor greater individual freedom? 

7. It is frequently asserted that Prussia before 1914, China, modern in- 
dustry, and certain large religious denominations unduly or excessively 
restrict individual development or freedom of action. To what extent do 
you believe these criticisms well founded? 

8. The efforts of many women during recent years to procure equality 
of suffrage and opportunity for economic participation led many extremists 
among them to revolt against a considerable number of conventional or legal 
conditions created to stabilize family life, foster thrift, and the like. How 
far do these revolts seem to you justifiable? 

9. Modern education, as well as domestic discipline, have departed very far 
indeed from the standards of control and subjection once imposed upon chil- 
dren. Is it your opinion that the greater freedom resulting is or is not an 
ultimate good to society? Would such freedom probably be a good to Ameri- 
can society if we were a nation frequently making war upon strong enemies 
surrounding us? 

10. What does it appear to you that careful sociological study of various 
classes of adults from twenty-five to fifty years of age in our midst — men 
who have been through' college ; unmarried, mobile negro workers ; women 
factory operatives ; small owning farmers ; seamen ; and the like — from the 
standpoint of such social virtues as thrift, personal morality, property honesty, 
respect for laws, and patriotism, would suggest as to needs of greater social 
control or social education or socialization among them? 

11. What differences can you trace between these: conscious self -directing 
individualism, and unconscious self-centered individualism; fully informed and 
self-active participation in social groups, and enforced and involuntary par- 
ticipation ? 

12. Does the prolonged and steady "institutionalization" of social means or 



INDIVIDUATION AND SOCIALIZATION 183 

functions — religion, government, property, the family, household life, educa- 
tion — seem to you to produce net harm in the suppression of individuality, or 
net good in regularizing social processes? What differences w^ill probably 
take place in your ov^n evaluation of these things between the ages of twenty- 
five and fifty-five? 

THE STRENGTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL ^ 

The courses actually followed by moving bodies — from planets to 
raindrops, from ocean currents to sap in trees — are, as physicists would 
say, the resultants of two or more forces. Similarly, many social phe- 
nomena must be interpreted as resultants of several forces acting in dif- 
ferent directions. 

Any mature man, as we see him, represents the resultant effects of 
many pressures from within, and of others from without, which have 
combined to make him what he is. His bodily powers and his instincts 
have worked in conjunction with his material surroundings, his family 
associates, and the other social influences to give him what he now pos- 
sesses of intelligence, habits, likings, and powers — in a word, his total 
character or personality. 

Every observer of children is aware of certain instinctively social or 
other-regarding tendencies in them. Apparently opposed to these are a 
variety of self-regarding tendencies no less potent. Nature has indeed 
provided that man shall desire to mingle, to cooperate, and to grow with 
others ; but no less it seems to have been solicitous that he shall desire to 
be by himself, to depend upon himself, and to grow strong in himself. 

Both sets of tendencies are, obviously, normal ; and either may, cer- 
tainly, he carried to excess. All social philosophers would agree that in- 
dividuality should be cultivated, and that excessive individualism is bad 
— that is, as long as we confine ourselves to abstract principles. These 
thinkers will quarrel much, like other people, over concrete applications. 
We all know of individuals who are so greedy, self-centered, egotistical, 
or antisocial that they do their fellows more harm than they do themselves 
good — who are, therefore, bad members of society. We also know per- 
sons who are so self -abnegating, submissive, and pliant that they do them- 
selves more harm than they do good to others — they also are, at best, 
poor sticks in the social structure. The strongly self-willed, no less than 
the weak-willed, represent virtues in excess. 

The struggle for selfhood is waged by every growing child, as it is by 

^ See E. A. Ross, Social Control (Part I, The Gromids of Control) ; and J. M. 
Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations (Ch. 7, The Self-Conscious Person). 



i84 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

every plant and animal.^ The man who is to be good in the sight "of his 
fellows or in the sight of God must, within the due limits set by the 
needs of his environment, stand strongly on his own feet, know his own 
course of action, and be able to call his soul his own. Few would dispute 
that. But social philosophy argues endlessly as to where those due limits 
are. Study of the facts of social control show numberless instances in 
which family or church or vocation or the state has prematurely bound, 
yoked, emasculated, and ' stultified its members — always ostensibly for the 
general good. On the other hand, it is very hard to determine, in specific 
situations, where it is expedient to draw the line at the socialization — 
especially the compulsory socialization — of the individual. It can hardly 
be expected that the young, the ambitious, the artistically temperamental, 
should be good judges of desirable limits here. On the other hand, it is 
probable that army officers, statesmen, priests, captains of industry, and 
even the elders of the family expect too much. 

Individuality may suffer atrophy to disastrous degrees in modern life.^ 
It is common belief that development of individual charcteristics — abili- 
ties to stand alone, to work alone, and even to find oneself good company 
— takes place inadequately in cities. The boys and girls of middle- 
class dwellers in suburbs are herded into schools, spend many of their 
out-of-school hours in clubs and other sets of their own forming, and 
in summer club with a score or more of fellows in summer camps. Prob- 
ably these youngsters are subjected to excessive "socialization" — of certain 
limited kinds. They "inbreed" excessively in a social sense — that is, they 
are not "socialized" to old people, to much younger people, to people 
of different economic or cultural standards. The groups in which they 
are so gregarious are too like-minded. 

A certain university has widely advertised its school of forestry. A 
shrewd secondary school principal finds many of his suburban pupils 
attracted. He quietly laughs away their ambitions because, he says, 
most of them would perish of loneliness if they had to pass a day and 
a night without boon companions. Have they lost something precious? 
Is it possible that the central trouble with the modern "flapper" is that 
she herds every day and all day with others just like herself — especially 
as respects morals and ideas? 

Individuation, then, must be held as a social process of first importance. 
To give "the ego his own" becomes one legitimate objective of social 

^ Recall J. J. Rousseau's Emile and J. Dewey's School and Society. 
^ For an extreme and somewhat anarchistical point of view, see Max Stirner, The 
Ego and His Own, 



INDIVIDUATION AND SOCIALIZATION 185 

action, always coupled with the determination that particular egos must not 
be allowed to "get away with" more than their own. A widely used peda- 
gogic slogan aims at the "cultivation of the individuality of the child." 
Only a body strong in the service of its own ends can also be strong for 
the ends or purposes of colleagues. Only a strong will, produced at the risk 
of giving a powerful self-will, can join effectively in cooperative willing. 
All education must work its particular first effects on individuals ; and 
there is the ever-present danger that the individual thus made strong will 
use his powers against his fellows. The man who has been taught by his 
fellows to use a sword, a pen, or a chemical laboratory may, according 
to his social or antisocial disposition, turn his power to the help or to the 
injury of his fellows. Political liberty is for many men an opportunity 
for freer and better service to companions, the state, society at large. To 
some it is opportunity for self-aggrandizement, the exploitation of others. 

Almost ceaseless, therefore, are the contests that go on between any 
individual and each of the groups in which he has membership. The 
child in the family must yield very fully to its control in his earlier years ; 
but gradually he frees himself, becomes independent, and asserts his own 
individuality, as we say. But even in earlier years the normal child 
strives to "call his soul his own." He tries to have some possessions that 
brothers and sisters may not claim. He protests against too great tasks 
or unjust requirements imposed by mother or father. He craves time 
to play in his own way. He often becomes distressingly self-centered. 
He resists the deadening effects of school routine, so that a sensitive 
pedagogy encourages self-activity and voluntary rather than enforced 
social participations. 

The school as a social microcosm finds that a large proportion of its 
disciplinary problems grow out of the resistance of its pupils, especially 
of the more individualistic, against the shaping, even submerging, proc- 
esses of school and classroom. Within every city, state, and nation there 
are found some who perpetually resent the curtailments of their free- 
dom by laws, regulations, conventions, and taxes. Even the best of 
citizens find themselves at times in open protest aginst one or another 
of the numberless forms of restraint or exaction that modern political 
authority most enforce.* 

Even where membership in social groups has been more or less volun- 
tary — church, party, labor union, club, marriage — it is common to find 
persons resenting the restrictions encountered, and even deserting or 

* See E. A. Ross, Principles (Ch. 21-24, Cooperation and the Organization of 
Efifort, Will, and Thought). 



i86 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

abrogating their responsibilities. Underneath njearly all the conflicts 
and disorders that keep the waters of society agitated, we shall find the 
strivings of individuals to assert themselves. A large part of the best 
constructive effort of leaders is directed toward finding in these conflicts 
what might be called optimum resultants — that is, just that combination 
of restraint and freedom which will give best results to all concerned, and 
"in the long run." 

The first article in the wisdom of the sociologist here is the conviction 
that there are no single formulae, no easy solutions, and especially no pan- 
aceas. And yet, in practice, men are always looking for panaceas here, just 
as they are looking for quick remedies for the ills of the body. The 
distrust in which reformers and "uplifters" are so often held by prac- 
tical men is due in large measure to the conviction that these well meaning 
souls are too often the victims of belief in over-simple remedies. Revolu- 
tionists always find it necessary to crystallize their aspirations into a few 
catchwords — which, of course, in the case of successful revolutions, 
usually contain somewhat more of truth than of error. 

The guiding social principle in social action is clearly this : each in- 
dividual has a right to so much free play and development of his indi- 
viduality as is consistent with the equal rights of others, including a 
reasonable regard for the rights of a moderately extended posterity. 
This has long been the guiding principle as regards liberty ; each person 
should have all the liberty possible, subject to the rights of others to equal 
liberty. 

But in every-day life practical applications of this principle must be 
made by human beings with their frailties and lack of prolonged experience. 

The results are in one type of family or state, church or school, or 
economic organization, an excess of individualism ; of laisscz-fmre, or 
of selfishness ; and in another harmful suppression of individuality. At 
one time freedom becomes license, in another age liberty is outlawed. 

The ideal of civilized life is expressed by the phrase "liberty within the 
law." ^ For it is clear to the student of the social sciences that, in the 
long run, opportunities of all kinds for the individual (except, possibly, 
for the satisfaction of some very primitive instincts like pugnacity, the 
chase after game, and sexual promiscuity) are enormously enhanced by 
organized and ordered group life. In normal societies, then, once the 
bonds of public safety have been defined, the range of freedom, or, more 
broadly, of individuality, is greatly extended, although of course there 

'See J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy (Ch. 11-14, Liberty, Its Progress, Meaning, 
etc.). 



INDIVIDUATION AND SOCIALIZATION 187 

will always be individuals who fail, for one reason or another, to take 
advantage of their opportunities. 

To socialize an individual is to fit or adapt him to a social group. 
Specific steps in the processes of socialization naturally depend upon the 
requirements of the group on the one hand, and the already acquired 
characteristics of the individual on the other. To discipline a child of 
seven, teeming with impulses toward play and communication, to the 
orderly procedure required in a school class of forty is obviously a diffi- 
cult, and in one sense an "unnatural," process. The family group may 
'find it easy to socialize the child of seven to its needs ; whereas at fifteen 
the process becomes much more complicated for that family group which 
seeks to defer economic independence for several years in the interests 
of prolonged education. Many adults are very willing to fit into the state, 
or into parties, as long as these give them benefits ; but they find it onerous 
to pay taxes, attend meetings, and perform jury and other duties. 

All advancing societies find it necessary to give constantly increased at- 
tention to various forms of socialization. It is especially hard now so to 
socialize men that they will fit without excessive friction into the gigantic 
social groups — religious, political, economic, cultural — begotten of modern 
forms of cooperation. Men find it far from easy to unite their efforts 
and their sentiments with others of different colors, faiths, culture, sump- 
tuary standards. 

Socialization uses coercion, but often finds "attraction" more fruitful. 
If it can begin very early, it forestalls barriers to be soon erected by 
family, gang, and other small groups. Americans think of the public 
school as a great socializing agency. This country has evolved many other 
means of socialization — its travel, widely read newspapers, "movies" 
(which may draw color lines, but few others), and democracy of 
dress. 

Social control is one of the chief processes in socialization. This will 
be analyzed in the next chapter. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Baldwin, J. M. Social and Ethical Interpretations (Part III, The Per- 
son's Equipment; and Ch. 15, Society and the Individual). 

Brinton, D. G. The Basis of Social Relations (Ch. 2, The Individual 
and the Group; and Ch. 4, The Influences of the Social Relations). 

Carver, T. N. Essays in Social Justice (Ch. 3, The Principle of Self- 
Centered Appreciation). 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



Conn, H. W. Social Heredity and Social Evolution (Ch. 9, Egoism in 

the Human Race; Ch. 10, Altruism). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Organisation (Ch. 1-2, Social and Individual 

Aspects of Mind; and Ch. 28-29, Institutions and the Individual). 
Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. H. Ethics (Ch. 20, Social Organization and 

the Individual). 
Parmelee, M. Criminology (Part III, Criminal Traits and Types). 
Shaw, Albert. The Outlook for the Average Man (Ch. 2). 
Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 32, The Individual). 
Todd, A. J. Theories of Social Progress (Ch. 4 and 5, Self as a Social 

Product). 
Trotter, W. Instincts of the Herd in War and Peace (Ch. 1). 



CHAPTER XVI 
SOCIAL CONTROL 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

IN home, school, neighborhood community, workshop, church, and 
party, there is incessant need of the various "controls" by which 
young, inexperienced, or naturally individualistic persons are either ad- 
justed to the group, or, if too obdurate, are expelled from it. Many of 
the processes of social control are essentially educative in method, and 
conversely many of the processes of education have some form of social 
control as their purpose. 

You, the reader, have been subjected to many processes of control 
without always having been aware of them. Your modesty, sensitiveness 
to the ill opinion of others, and desires for approval have all been utilized 
by your fellows — frequently by persons somewhat older, more experi- 
enced, or resolute of will than yourself — to shape you to the group stand- 
ards. Social pressures as powerful and unappreciated as the pressure 
of air upon the body have always surrounded you, tending to shape you 
into the conventional Christian or Jewish American you now are. The 
dead hands of the past, even, have through books, art, laws, and customs 
reached forward to help in molding you. 

1. What are the various means by which growing children are trained into 
harmonious membership in the family group ? What difficulties do teachers 
frequently encounter in disciplining pupils who have not heretofore been in 
school ? What are some of the deeper purposes of the ceremonies of initiation 
into secret societies, fraternities, and other congenial groups? If a member 
of a clique or social set becomes very "different," what are the penalties usually 
inflicted by other members? 

2. What are the real purposes of: capital punishment; imprisonment; fines; 
exile ; deprivation of rights of suffrage ? Do laws against arson, theft, fraud, 
and forgery tend on the whole to prevent crime ? Or are they operative only 
against those who actually become criminals? Why are there so many laws 
against misdemeanors and felonies, while there are very few against what 
are distinctively called sin and immorality? How is sin usually punished in 
social groups? What means have we at our disposal for punishing the 
guilty, and keeping others from offending, where the kinds of immorality 
that do not come under the laws are involved? 

3. Analyze the various means by which a soldier is kept in order and made 



I90 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

to do his duty as respects: obeying his superiors; keeping himself tidy; risking 
his Hfe when necessary? 

4. In what ways have the reHgions of the world contributed to keeping 
men orderly, honest, and industrious? What are some of the specific devices 
that have been used to procure these ends by appeals to fear, love, reverence 
or awe, sympathy ? Separately consider : divine commands, rituals, applied 
art, intellectual enlightenment through sermons and other teaching. 

5. When, as a result of conquest or otherwise, there result social classes, 
one of which is a "governing class" (recall examples from Egypt, Greece, 
Rome, the Middle Ages, even England of a hundred years ago, or to-day 
in India), by what means are the non-governing classes kept obedient, or- 
derly, industrious, and contented? Discuss separately: laws and penalties; art, 
ceremonial, and other devices affecting feelings; enlightenment. 

6. Discuss various ways by which conventions, customs, ceremonials, and 
systematic education toward establishing attitudes and ideals are employed as 
means of social control in fitting to the modern group life. 

7. Review the means by which each of these groups accessions and habitu- 
ates to its standards new and untried members : labor unions ; fashionable 
social sets; strictly orthodox churches; political parties; college fraternities; 
secret societies planning revolt ; organizations for the promotion of culture ; 
learned societies. 

8. What are problems of social control encountered by "responsible" govern- 
ments in countries like Great Britain, France, and Italy, when the executive 
in power wishes to promote policies that arouse considerable popular an- 
tagonism? 

9. As a child passes from birth to early manhood, what are the agencies, 
and what are the specific kinds of control exercised by each, in fitting him 
into the various forms of big and little group life in which he must have, or 
can have, membership ? Separately consider : home ; street and playground ; 
church ; police power ; private clubs ; vocational participation ; the press ; the 
stage, including photodrama; the library; and the school. Is the function of 
the school relatively large or small in the domains of such private or small 
group morals as property honesty, truthfulness, peaceable deportment, clean 
speech ? What seem to he the particular virtues of scouting as preparation for 
adult conformity? 

ORIGINS OF SOCIAL CONTROL^ 

Nearly all of the social groups that are formed by men, women, and 
children, together or separately, have of necessity a shifting membership. 

*The work of first importance here is E. A. Ross, Social Control. Any chapter 
can be read profitably by itself. See also his Principles (Ch. 34 and 35, Social Con- 
trol, and Super-Social Control). 



SOCIAL CONTROL 191 



The group remains, while its individual constituents come and go. Hence 
nearly every group contains some relatively old and experienced members, 
and some young and inexperienced members. The old are best informed 
as 'to the values of group cohesion, whilst the young, still in a measure 
unconscious of these values, tend to follow their personal preferences. 
Fundamentally, the processes of social control involve the adjustment 
of young or less responsible persons to the group, and the holding of all 
group members to their responsibilities. 

Initiation as a sensational stage in a process of social control is every- 
where in evidence. When a new boy moves into a neighborhood, the 
local gang or cliquelike group first view him with suspicion, then proceed 
gradually to "break him in," to assimilate him to their customs. The 
child born into the family acquires through imitation and formal teach- 
ing the customs, language, manners, and even religion of the elders. 
Many and devious are the ways in which the experienced older students 
in college groups proceed to "assimilate" freshmen to the ways of the 
tribe. "Naturalization" is a process of adjusting newcomers to the citizen- 
ship standards of the adopting people. When a family moves into a 
new neighborhood, custom often imposes various conditions upon their 
acceptance into the little neighborhood community. Primitive peoples 
develop complicated rituals through which youths are admitted to the 
company and responsibilities of warriors and workers.^ Apprenticeship 
in industry, confirmation in churches, election into clubs, admission to 
college, formal acceptance into party or cult, are all processes by which 
social groups screen out undesirables, and give preliminary shaping to 
those whom they will eventually receive. 

In all healthy social groups this process of recruiting is constant, and 
is nearly always directed by the "older heads," the wise men of the group. 
When recruits are "born" into the group — as the family, the local com- 
munity, and the state — the process becomes one of long and sometimes 
difficult assimilation. Where fairly matured persons are to be accepted 
or rejected — immigration, election, intermarriage, formal communion — 
it can be required that only candidates having approved qualities shall 
be selected, and also that they shall be "prepared" for their new associ- 
ates. Every "exclusive" group — clique, social set, club, learned society, 
school, state, aristocratic family, labor union, church meticulous as to 
creed, and secret society — has its special fences for shutting out the 
unwelcome, and also "vestibule training" processes for the educative 
induction of novices. 

^ See H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies. 



192 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Enforcement of conformity supplements the initiatory processes as a 
means of assuring the cohesiveness and working effectiveness of the 
group. Here, again, the elders and the naturally strong members usually 
take the lead. As children grow up in family groups they are subject 
to perpetual discipline by parents, aunts, older brothers, and conven- 
tionalized sisters. A church always exerts centripetal forces on members, 
only pausing occasionally to eject the hopeless non-conformist. Every 
neighborhood disciplines its members through public sentiment, typi- 
fied in the lashing tongue of Mother Grundy. The state uses capital 
punishment, prisons, and exile to control its recalcitrants. 

The effects of social control are not to be measured by the number of 
persons ejected, disfranchised, or punished. Docility is apparently a 
far more potent quality in human beings than self-assertiveness. The 
machinery of social control operates smoothly, and usually unconsciously, 
except for occasional ruptures and revolts. Look at the adults around us. 
Most of them are properly submissive to the laws, customs, and con- 
ventions that the majority "weight" of public opinion (often exerted 
by a strong minority) exerts. A crime, or revolt, or even outcry of de- 
fiance startles often because of its novelty more than because of its threat. 

The price of social control is, nevertheless, eternal vigilance — to con- 
serve the social inheritance, and also to change it with the times. The 
wisdom of men on the "custom plane" of social evolution aspired to a 
static equilibrium — in the conviction that "what was best for our fathers 
is best for us." So in religion, politics, economics, and culture they 
tried most to maintain the status qua ante. The "Golden Age" of some 
past condition they sought ceaselessly to restore. But the modern world 
has faith in progress. Its Golden Age is ahead, not to the rear. It rel- 
ishes the philosophy of change, of evolution. "The fiend that man harries, 
is love of the best." "Man never is, but always to be, blest." "A man's 
reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?" 

Political parties, churches, cultural societies, even nations, that do 
not keep pace with the age, that lose the power of modification from 
within, either perish or, from time to time, undergo catastrophic change. 
Hardly a family group escapes the minor tragedies in these dynamic 
times of experiencing breakdowns in control years before natural "pro- 
liferations" should take place. There are many indications that the 
prisons, sedition laws, and countless other means designed to curb de- 
structive individualism or "packism" in the modern state reflect archaic 
methods of questionable utility. Even philanthropic societies, corporate 
(as opposed to pubHc) schools, and business organizations suffer atrophy 



SOCIAL CONTROL 193 



of function if they do not perpetually secrete some vital fluid of self- 
renewal, or rather of rebirth for new functionings. 

The means of social control, like the means of social growth itself, 
are endlessly varied in kind and in methods of use. The educator thinks 
first of education, the soldier or politician of governnjent, the church- 
man of religion, and the economist of hunger or the pursuit of wealth, 
as the most potent instrument whereby men are brought into, and held 
within, the safe bounds of collective action. The biologist, appreciative 
of the very intense and effective collectivism of various animal groupings, 
reads great importance into the instinctive forms of docility, suggestibility, 
and imitativeness that he finds in all human beings. The social psy- 
chologist attaches no less significance to the directing and domineering 
tendencies that he finds all human beings instinctively manifesting to- 
ward the younger, weaker, or less informed. 

The sociologist still experiences great difficulty in detecting and ap- 
praising the relatively invisible and quietly pervasive means of social 
control. For many purposes of control the conventions of society (given 
personal suggestiveness in the village gossip, Mrs. Grundy) are far 
more effective than are constitutions and laws; yet their origins are 
hardly discernible, and their methods of operation very obscure. Under 
some circumstances the fine arts of music, drama, and painting may 
do more to shape right social appreciations and ideals than the more 
spectacular machinery of collective worship of deities. But social psy- 
chology can as yet only guess at the processes by which social results 
are produced. 

Means effective at one stage of culture, or for certain kinds of peo- 
ple, may be quite ineffective under other conditions. Throughout the 
Middle Ages in Europe much use was made of conscious authoritarian 
controls — that is, of reliance on authority, physical or moral, and its con- 
comitants of force and penalty. Such types of control seem the natural 
offspring of military necessity; and it can plausibly be argued that the 
medieval family, church, school, guild, municipality, and province fol- 
lowed the warrior's lead in a time when armed conflict was shared by 
nearly all men. 

But in modern, and especially in non-militarist, societies, control by 
visible and arbitrary authority is much in abeyance. It is generally be- 
lieved that both democracy and freedom of thought are impaired, even 
nullified, where social control is for considerable periods achieved through 
the sway of arbitrary authority imposed on "blind" obedience. The 
modern school repudiates uninformed discipline and corporal punish- 



194 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ment. Freedom of press and of speech are guaranteed by constitutions 
and laws. Religious reformations move steadily toward substitution of 
reason for dogma. The ''divine right of kings" disappears with heredi- 
tary and autocratic government. Family government itself evolves along 
more democratic lines. Half-concealed oligarchy in business organiza- 
tion is hunted out by means of scores of penalizing, even if as yet easily 
evaded, laws. 

Political government, originating as a means of providing for collective 
defense, speedily becomes also a large part of society's machinery for 
the maintenance of internal order — the promotion of "domestic tran- 
quilHty" — in nation, province, municipality, or neighborhood. Especially 
potent means of social control are evolved by or through governments 
toward assuring the solidarity essential to presenting a united front to 
the enemy. Countless social groups from bands, clans, and tribes to em- 
pires have carried their peoples down to destruction and oblivion because 
they were too poorly united or controlled to defend themselves. "Sur- 
vival of the fittest" may mean fittest mechanisms and ideals of collective 
control no less than combative dispositions and powerful bodies. 

The origins of many governmental controls familiar to the modern 
world are to be found in the ages of conquest, during which, according to 
some sociologists, most of the foundations of the modern civilized social 
order were laid. Conquest, as the term is here used, meant the subjuga- 
tion, sometimes of pastoral, but more often of agricultural, mining, 
and industrial peoples by strong, but not necessarily numerous, invaders 
who continued to exercise military functions and assumed governmental 
and sometimes priestly and cultural leadership, whilst aiming to preserve 
order and maximum productivity among the subjugated peoples. Nearly 
all the pages of history are filled with examples — from ancient Egypt, 
Sparta and Rome, through Goth-governed Spain, Norman-governed Eng- 
land, and Covenanter-governed Ireland down to modern India, South 
Africa, and even our own regions snatched from their original owners, the 
Indians. Conquest not merely introduces new mechanisms, but to a large 
extent new conceptions, of social control. 

Conquest in its more extreme forms results simply in the destruction 
of the conquered. In its advanced forms the conquerors organize, pro- 
tect, and develop the conquered, partly as a means to the furtherance of 
the purposes of the conquered. A people subjugated is not necessarily 
a people exploited, at least in the earliest and latest stages of the process. 
When conquest crystallizes into systems of taxation, commandeered serv- 



SOCIAL CONTROL 195 



ice, perpetuated social disabilities including ignorance, true exploitation 
may be a general consequence. 

History seems to prove that conquest is, in the long run, bad for the 
conquerors — that is, for their kind, stock, or even cultural wealth. They 
decay through their own prosperity. Their blood descends into mongrel 
forms. Their institutions are corrupted by those of the conquered, es- 
pecially such as depend, like religion, speech, and small-group customs, 
upon the control and education of profligate low-class women. Egypt, 
Greece, Rome, England, Spain, Mexico, French Canada, and Paraguay 
all bear eloquent witness to the ultimate "conquest of conquerors by the 
conquered." 

Modern conquest — in Central Africa, the Philippines, Java — becomes 
more humane, less exploitative, more constructive for the conquered. 
Education toward capacity for self-government becomes an avowed pur- 
pose of rulers in Egypt, India, the Philippines. But the tropics seem 
to retard the growth of peoples. These advance, but in the meantime 
temperate-zone peoples have moved faster. 

Transitions toward enlightenment as a means of social control are, 
therefore, taking place in all societies. Social control through custom, 
blind obedience, and unintelligent compliance with laws and regulations, 
steadily gives way to enlightened and willing submission. Evidences of 
this are found in all democratic governments, religious organizations, in- 
dustrial aggregations, and even within the personal groups found in vil- 
lages and cities. The downfall of Prussian militarism, with its number- 
less ancillary repressions on thought and action, marked the close of the 
final act in the drama of medievalism in western Europe. 

Education of the rank and file of citizens comes to be the touchstone 
of successful control. The school room of former times was oligarchic 
or autocratic in its social control. Motives of fear were appealed to. 
Penalties were administered for infraction of rules, and unreasoning com- 
pliance was insisted on. The modern school room substitutes enlightened 
submission and appeals to reason as means of control ; but, like the state, 
it always holds means of coercion for the most recalcitrant in reserve. 

Conflicts of "large groups" tend to be the sources of the most threaten- 
ing of modern social disorders. Individuals can be controlled toward 
social harmony by the machinery of their own groups. Small groups can 
increasingly be controlled by the state and by their federate organiza- 
tions. Only when social groups assume gigantic size, and conflicts of 
interest are manifest among them, is the entire social stability greatly 



196 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

endangered. When all the citizens composing one nation can be made 
to feel that another nation is oppressing or otherwise injuring them, 
then international conflict is hardly to be avoided. Similarly, when fed- 
erated groups of wage-earners become completely convinced that aggrega- 
tions or federate groups of employers or consumers profit at their expense, 
class conflicts are with great difficulty to be avoided. In large group 
contests, enlightment of the rank and file as to the kinds and degrees 
of harmony of interests that exist is difficult to produce. In later chap- 
ters it will be pointed out that to a very large extent the needs of civic 
education in all our schools are largely determined by ever-present possi- 
bilities of large group conflicts in modern life along geographic, racial, 
or economic lines. The world once witnessed long periods of strife be- 
tween large groups along religious lines, but the possibility of any recur- 
rence of such divisions seems now remote — unless it should be on such 
a world-wide scale as Islam against Christianity, 

The enlistment of sentiments and other feeling attitudes in the inter- 
ests of social control is as old as the story of conscious action among 
men. The feelings are to a large extent approached through devices of 
esthetic art, religion, personalities of leaders, and other similar agencies. 
The painting and sculptui-e so widely used under religious fosterings 
throughout the Middle Ages were designed largely as means to the higher 
forms of social control. Patriotic and religious music have long stories 
of evolution as means to the same ends. Various forms of literature 
that make an emotional appeal have been produced by their authors with 
a view to elevating the moral, civic, and patriotic sentiments of leaders. 
Homer, Dante, Pope, Tennyson, Whittier, and Whitman, as well as 
scores of novelists, have been conscious social propagandists for the 
higher social life as they saw it. 

Elsewhere it is suggested that, with the progressive use of enlighten- 
ment as a means of social control, the use of agencies arousing the feel- 
ings may diminish. This is an unwelcome thesis to many, but it is, 
nevertheless, in accord with the fundamental principles of social evolu- 
tion and with our understanding of social psychology. 

IMPROVEMENTS IN SOCIAL CONTROL 

In no other area of social thought and action is more effort on the 
part of scientists and practical workers being expended than in the domain 
of social control. Every thoughtful citizen recognizes the multiplying 
complexities of modern social life and the very great necessities of large- 



SOCIAL CONTROL 197 



scale cooperation, if this complex social order is to be preserved. As 
suggested elsewhere, education, especially as it can be developed for 
adolescents, is very much the most important means to this end. Many 
other agencies are, however, being developed. Criminology and penology 
are opening new vistas relative to the prevention, cure, and the humane 
detention, of criminals. Social insurance, vocational education, and many 
other means of control looking to the enhancement of productiveness are 
being developed. The enactment of legislation, and more particularly its 
adequate enforcement, rests now on a variety of new ideals as to social 
improvement which may well be considered of the utmost importance. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 14, Discipline; Ch. 19, Social Con- 
trol or the Survival of Types ; Ch. 32, Rational Control Through 
Standards). 

Parmelee, M. Criminology (Part I, The Nature and Evolution of 
Crime). 

Small^ a. W. General Sociology (Ch. 41, Current Confusion of Moral 
Standards). 

Smith^ W. R. Educational Sociology (Ch. 13, The Socialization of 
Discipline). 

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Sociology (Part IV, Ceremonial In- 
stitutions). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 5, Societal Selection). 

Thomas, W. J. Sex and Society (Ch. 2, Sex and Primitive Social 
Control). 

Tufts, J. H. Our Democracy (Ch. 22-28, Problems of Democratic 
Government). 



CHAPTER XVII 

COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 

A. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE GENERAL 

WHAT kinds of emulation, rivalry, or competition have you observed 
v^ithin a family group, as, for example, between brothers, and some- 
times betvi^een brother and sister ? What are the good results ? Do these oppo- 
sitions tend to nullify the larger or more urgent cooperations between the indi- 
viduals concerned? 

2. In many forms of physical training it is customary to permit frequent 
competitions — between individuals, intra-school teams, inter-school teams. 
What are some good results? Possible bad results? Do they interfere with 
desirable cooperations ? 

3. Formerly much competition — for rewards, prizes, high marks, "head of 
class" — was promoted in school education. Now less is heard of it, and teach- 
ers are urged to "socialize the recitation." What are the probable causes, 
purposes, and results of this changed attitude of educators? 

4. In a large establishment where only a few promotions are possible, is 
it generally true that all or many workers are keenly competing for such 
promotion ? Do labor unions seem to approve such competition ? Why ? Does 
it interfere with proper cooperations of workers? 

5. The people of the United States cooperate in sustaining their country, 
and yet they compete sharply in political parties. What are good results? 
Possible bad results ? 

6. Bring forward evidence to support the contention that almost every kind 
of social group is a theater of cooperations and competitions; and that when 
the competitive processes- become excessive and unfair, the social group tends 
to disintegrate and even to resolve itself into mutually antagonistic groups or 
sects; and that it is the aim of sound social economy to preserve as much 
competition as will stimulate the activities, without destroying the usefulness, 
of the group. 

7. Set forth some of the implications of these statements : "good sport" ; a 
"poor loser" ; "the Latin races [it is sometimes said] are unwilling to abide 
by the will of the majority, and therefore do not produce good republican 
government." "Intercollegiate sports are very desirable in teaching 'fair 
play.'" 

198 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 199 

8. Why have civiHzed societies outlawed murder, the duel, and the vendetta ? 
Why do men of social vision now generally deplore war? Why do we have 
an Inter-State Commerce Commission to "regulate" competition among rail- 
roads? Why is pugilism so generally prohibited? 

MUTUAL AID AND MUTUAL HINDRANCE^ 

From the lowest to the highest forms of life are to be found the op- 
posed processes that can in general terms be termed "cooperation" and 
"conflict." More forms of life strive to gain a foothold, to live, and 
to perpetuate their kind than there is room or food for. Hence they come 
into opposition — brother with brother, species with species. Only a few 
of the multitude of the seeds of a plant or the eggs of a fish can mature 
into new full sized creatures. One species of carnivora maintains a per- 
sistent, perhaps unconscious, contest for survival with another, one species 
of trees with another. To a degree, also, plant and animal species may 
be said to compete; although animals and some plants usually best 
realize their respective destinies by a kind of cooperative relationship 
called symbiosis. 

But by mutual aid among themselves individuals can, under certain 
conditions, win out against rivals. Wolves by forming a pack can defeat 
their enemies and capture more game. Plants and timid animals find in 
mutual reinforcement a means of survival. Even different species can 
thus help each other to survive — e. g., dog and man. Probably all nature 
tends toward an equilibrium of conflict and cooperation of the "live 
and let live" kind — perhaps a fundamental symbiosis, notwithstanding 
that the rising ascendancies of intelligent, tool-using man has, especially 
during the last ten thousand years, greatly disturbed older balances of 
animal and plant species. 

In the broadest sense, then, we not only cooperate with other human 
beings, but with other animate creatures and with inanimate nature. 
Man is helped to live and survive by horses and the rains, by game and 
by forests, by land and by water. The generations behind, and the deities 
ahead whom man has evoked, all have cooperated, in a sense, to bring him 
to his present station. 

Similarly, man's opponents have been not only others of his species, 
but also countless other species, as well as the adverse forces of nature, 

^ The most illuminating interpretations are to be found in : Bagehot, Physics and 
Politics (Ch. 2, The Uses of Conflict) ; Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Ch. 3, 5, 7) ; Ross, 
Social Control (Fart III, The System of Control) ; and Kelsey, Physical Basis of 
Society (Ch. 2, Mutual Aid and the Struggle for Existence). 



200 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

and the spirit beings whom he has postulated. Even to-day, when he 
has largely conquered in the age-long war with wolves, lions, and sharks, 
he still wages deadly war for his food and health against numberless 
insects and bacteria. He fights against weeds and storms for his crops, 
and struggles with floods and earthquakes for his life. 

Cooperation vs. conflict are universal. Each individual is in almost 
incessant cooperation with some of his fellows ; in competition with 
others ; and in conflict with still others. Many of our social relations 
within groups, which have largely eliminated true conflict, involve now 
some cooperation and some competition between the same individuals. 
Biologist and sociologist are interested to discover which is the more 
universal or significant relationship. Perhaps the problem is as futile 
as would be the question of the relative importance of brain and stomach 
in the economy of the higher vertebrates ; rivalry and mutual aid are both 
basic. 

It is obvious, of course, that cooperative relations increase in number 
and intensity as societies advance ; but so also do the relationships of com- 
petition, and, where strong oppositions of interest persist, conflicts like- 
wise. The scope of possible cooperation so widens in modern aspirations 
that statesmen see in anticipation all the nations of the world forming 
"communities of interest." Likewise, many recent aspirations and par- 
tial realizations give significance to the phrase "community of nations." 
"Our common humanity" becomes the basis of proposals for the reduc- 
tion of destructive conflicts among larger groups. 

Cooperative and competitive processes are frequently found in the 
same social group. The result is a kind of composition of forces, which 
nullify each other, or else give a resultant that only partly reflects the 
original components. We are told, for example, that the orbits of the 
earth and the planets are resultants of centripetal and centrifugal forces. 
All nature is said to exhibit these conflicts or oppositions. Our nation is 
first of all a cooperative organization, the results being shown in govern- 
ment, trade, and a thousand other reciprocities. But it is also a social 
field within which real; though controlled, competitions persist — rivalries 
of political parties, of geographic sections, of different economic interests, 
of religions, and of cultures. As long as the centripetal forces are stronger 
than the centrifugal, we shall call ourselves, and be in fact, a nation ; and 
as long as we are strengthened by normal competitions and not ruined 
by destructive conflicts, we may expect prosperity. 

Even the simplest of relationships between buyer and seller, and between 
employer and employee, exhibit these compounds of cooperation and com- 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 201 

petition. If in any of these the advantages of independence were greater 
than those of interdependence, then, obviously, there would be no sale, no 
job of work done. Hence, whenever a transaction takes place, it must 
be assumed that the cooperative forces are stronger than the competitive 
however much of ill feeling be present or the "cooperative spirit" be 
lacking. 

Victims of an unreal and superficial logic often insist, when contemplat- 
ing difficulties between laborers and employers, that "the interests of labor 
and capital are identical." The statement is practically nonsense. If 
employment is given and taken, there are believed to be net advantages, 
to both parties, as compared with mutual non-employment. But that 
major fact does not exclude possibilities of minor advantages going to 
one side or the other, according to the strategy that can be brought to 
bear. It is for these that the parties contend ; it is here that competition 
comes into play. For these reasons laborers resort to various expedients 
in order to secure "equality of bargaining power." 

Similar compositions of competitive and cooperative forces nearly always 
take place in commercial transactions. The prospective buyer may freely 
concede that a given article could not practicably be sold for less than 
forty dollars, at which price it would bring him large advantage. The 
expectant seller knows that he could under no circumstances receive more 
than sixty dollars, which price would give a great advantage to him. 
Within these limits competition for minor advantages take place in all 
processes of open or disguised bargaining. 

B. COOPERATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. What have been forms of cooperation with which you have had most 
experience? Distinguish as to cooperations in: play; support; productive 
work; fellowship. 

What forms of cooperation have existed between you and : parents ; brothers ; 
school fellows ; teachers ; employers ; employees ? 

Do you define as cooperative your business relations with : dentists ; sellers 
of shoes ; growers of wheat ; locomotive engineers when you travel ; George 
Washington; the pioneer explorers of America; Tennyson? 

2. Describe certain of your cooperative relationships that are accompanied 
by friendly and intimate personal contacts — those of partnerships; employer- 
employees ; buyer-sellers ; professional service. 

Describe certain others in which are found no significant accompaniments 



202 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of acquaintance or fellowship — in a large hotel ; with mail-carriers ; with the 
editor of a large daily newspaper; with men who repair the streets; with the 
governor of your state. 

Contrast, as to fellowship accompaniments to cooperative service: old and 
new hotels; country and city schools; stage-coach and train; old-style barter 
and bargaining with modern "one-price" department store; country and city 
newspaper ; custom seamstress and makers of "ready-made" clothing. 

3. Contrast as to probable "efficiency" (of perhaps more than one sort) 
the cooperations respectively characteristic of : partnerships and corpo- 
rations; amateur theatricals and commercial drama (as between enter- 
tainer and entertained) ; personal oral transmission of "news" (gossip, 
rumor) and commercial press; large-scale factory production and 
"smair'-shop production; father with childreri operating farm and corpo- 
ration farming. 

4. What are some assumed defects, and what are some current proposals 
for the improvement of cooperations (defensive, economic, religious, cul- 
tural, fellowship) between: transportation corporations and patrons; wife and 
husband in urban economic life; producers and consumers of such fruit as 
bananas or oranges ; managers and operatives in coal-mining ; large nations ; 
Mexico and the United States; religious denominations; adolescent youth and 
parents ? 

5. Analyze the more prominent proposals for extension of cooperations up- 
held by the socialist party, or in theories of socialism. What are usual 
grounds of opposition to these? 

6. What are probably the most well-grounded forms of cooperation now ex- 
isting in civilized countries in providing for: public defense (war) ; worship; 
production of farm products ; conduct of transportation ; extension of knowl- 
edge ; upbringing of families ; maintenance of neighborhood order ? 

7. What are forms of cooperation supposed to be most lacking among: 
farmers ; single men and women living in cities ; recent immigrants and old 
stock ; negroes and white ; believers in "personal liberty" and officials enforc- 
ing Volstead Act; manufacturers, as respects provision of vocational edu- 
cation ? 

8. Among whom, and- as respects what usual activities, are cooperations 
nearly instinctive or very readily developed ? Separately consider : small chil- 
dren; boys from ten to fourteen; single men and women from twenty to 
twenty-five ; fellow laborers ? 

9. What are some forms of cooperation that can be developed only with 
extreme difficulty? 

10. Why are Americans so afraid of the cooperations developed within: 
the trusts; the "blocs" in Congress; the large labor unions; the alliance of 
Japan and Great Britain? 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 203 



COOPERATION '■ 

Cooperative activities seem to many students of social science the most 
visible and significant of all the processes of group life. The term, 
obviously, should include all joint efforts toward the attainmfents of valu- 
able ends, even where these are instinctive, or have become so habitual 
and mechanical as to lie largely outside the reflective appreciations of the 
individuals concerned. Hence, while we easily think of the concerted 
efforts of warriors, hunters, and builders as forms of cooperation in 
defense and production, we should also recognize that the relations of 
teacher and pupils, buyer and seller, employer and employee, husband and 
wife, and speaker and audience as being essentially cooperative also. Some 
aspirational interpreters of social relations tend to restrict the term' to 
those novel or as yet marginal or hoped-for varieties of cooperation that 
a better or more generous social order seems to require — in other words, 
to very purposeful and fraternal mutual aid. But such delimitation of 
meaning takes little account of the basic facts of social evolution, in which 
numberless forms of cooperation have been reciprocally cause and product 
of group life. 

Cooperations tend generally to become mechanical and impersonal — in 
other words, habitual and unconscious. Many of them, as noted before, 
are instinctive, or so nearly instinctive; that resulting habits are very 
readily formed. But it is among large social groups that conscious co- 
operative mechanisms are most developed — for without such mechanisms 
there could be no effective cooperation. Institutions are frequently the 
essential agencies of the larger cooperations. Governments, churches, 
channels of trade, money, printed matter, schools — these are among such 
necessary means. 

Why are so many forms of cooperation impersonal? Largely because 
groups and inter-group relationships continue, whilst individuals come 
and go. We can think of an infant born in a village community. 
Obviously, he is at the outset unaware of the cooperations that sustain 
him — those of father with mother, of the house-builders that assure him 
housing, of the milk-bringers who help nourish him, and of nurses, 
physicians, and pharmacists who play their respective roles. Eventually 
the child becomes active and operative in the village ; he begins to give 
service as well as to take it. But often he fits in with the inherited mechan- 

^ Ross, Principles (Ch. 21, Cooperation). 



204 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

isms of mutual aid with as little of curiosity or self-consciousness as he 
shows in accepting the sunshine or the air. How many of us adults, as 
we visit a city, "put up" at a hotel, and read the morning newspaper, have 
any keen realizing sense of the complicated street-building, hotel man- 
agement, and news distribution that have cooperated to our service ? Only 
a very purposive social education of the youth living in a modern civilized 
society can make him even dimly aware of the range, magnitude, and 
delicate equilibrium of the numberless cooperative relationships in which 
he must function, especially during his productive years. 

Mechanized large-scale cooperations ^ result in serious waste when 
the cooperators are imperfectly informed as to the relations involved. In 
our daily contacts we become aware of numberless situations in which 
individuals feel that they are "getting the worst of it" in some scarcely 
visible partnership as buyer, seller, wage-taker, wage-payer, voter, or 
citizen. The air is filled with recriminations. In a sense, the cooperative 
relationship is forced on the complainants by circumstances — they could 
indeed avoid it, but at far greater loss than the criticized treatment occa- 
sions. 

C. COMPETITION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

The facts of competition are nearly as abundant in our experience as 
are the facts of cooperation. Within friendly small gr/Dups individual 
emulates or vies with individual. Men become rivals in love, business, and 
social ambition. Each merchant, doctor, or plumber is the competitor of 
others for patronage. School competes against school in sports. Our 
elections are nearly always highly organized competitions of parties, with 
candidates and leaders as star performers. Nations rival one another in 
seeking new .lands, trade, and preponderance. Sometimes these lead to 
the dire conflicts of war, which recurrently dispel dreams of larger brother- 
hood. 

Note some of the realities of competition in the life around us. A man 
or woman seeking employment hopes to find rival bidders for their services. 
In buying services, or the products of service, each one of us patronizes 
that competitor who ofifers us most of his goods for least of ours — repre- 
sented by our money. An ever-present motive in the life of workers is 
the desire to excel some one else, giving emulations that, in the case of 
singers, writers, and others appealing for recognition and reward in public 
praise, become poignant indeed. In many forms of physical education the 
rivalries of individual and group contests tend to become ends rather 

'Read E. P. Harris, Cooperation, the Hope of the Consumer (Ch. 23, Prospects in 
America) ; also T. N. Carver, Essays in Social Justice (Ch. 16, Social Service). 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 205 

than means, so acute are the competitive instincts in adolescents. Dark 
by-products of extreme rivalries are the envies, jealousies, strifes, and 
wars that so often desolate our social life. Numberless customs and laws 
are evolved to keep within safe bounds the propensities of men to take 
goods from one another by violence, to gamble, to fight, and, in the last 
dread issue, to kill in a fury of destructive strife. 

1. What are some of the essential qualities of competitions between: scholars 
for high marks ; the physicians of a small city for practice ; you and others 
like you for desirable positions; the United States and Great Britain for South 
American trade; the New York Central and the Pennsylvania railroads for 
passenger traffic to Chicago? 

2. What are the values or beneficial results of competitions between : ablest 
high-school pupils for a medal ; the two largest dailies in a city for subscribers ; 
the two largest religious denominations in a city ; the seller of clothes and 
the buyer for advantage in price; merchants of Japan and of the United 
States for the trade of the Chinese ; Harvard and Yale in football ? 

3. Why have Americans come strongly to resent keen competitions between : 
parallel railway systems ; doctors ; large corporations striving for lower rates 
on railroads ; children in school striving for "head of class" or prizes ? 

4. With the progress of civilization, does competition seem to increase or 
diminish? What changes take place in its character? 

5. A large part of the stimulus to sports seems to derive from the competi- 
tive spirit. Try to set against each other the good and bad results of this, "in 
the long run." 

6. Do good and strong governments now seek most to suppress, or to regu- 
late, competitions within the nation ? To what ends ? 

7. What are alleged to be the chief values of those fierce competitions 
between nations that have finally led to wars during the last two centuries? 
Give examples in evidence. 

8. What is the attitude of Christianity toward several forms of conflict? 
Competition ? The proposals for economic cooperation in socialism ? How is 
the doctrine or practice of laissez-faire related to competition? 

9. Compare the competitive instincts of human beings with those of two 
or three animal species. 

10. How early can you recall envy or jealousy of others? In what ways 
was "the spirit of emulation" a spur to intense activity on your part? Is 
competition usually more keen between persons substantially equal in age, 
size, abilities than between others? When were you first conscious of being 
a factor in "team competitions" — when, that is, you with some fellows were 
pitted against another group ? What seem to you some of the valuable effects 
of team competitions? Do instincts of rivalry seem stronger in males or in 
females ? 

11. Contemporary daily life presents many problems of competition, as to 



2o6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

which complete solutions are yet far off. What are the good effects of "busi- 
ness" competition? Between department stores? Grocers? Moving-picture 
houses ? Physicians ? How has competition been reduced between coal-mining 
companies ? Telephone companies ? Where is competition between the mem- 
bers of a trust? Is it well that two separately owned railway lines should 
parallel each other? Should franchises be granted to rival telephone com- 
panies in the same city? Is advertising a feature of business competition? 
All kinds — "classified" as well as "display" ? Advertising probably costs more 
than a billion dollars a year in the United States — is that a heavy contribu- 
tion? "It pays to advertise." Whom does it pay — ^the advertiser; the adver- 
tising medium; the competitor; the public? 

12. The schools once heavily utilized the competitive instincts in class work 
— through prolonged contests for prizes and scholarships, through daily "rank- 
ing" of pupils from "head" to "foot" of class, through marks, and by other 
devices. Were such procedures helpful? Democratic? Humane? Did they 
probably "strengthen the strong" — and w^eaken the weak? In what forms do 
they still survive — in public schools? In private schools? As respects ordi- 
nary studies ? Deportment ? Physical education ? What are the alleged values 
of "intercollegiate competitions" — to the institutions; to their "star perform- 
ers" ; to the sustaining onlookers ? 

13. The most highly organized forms of competition center in nations. The 
kinds and degrees of cohesiveness within a "national" group are determined 
largely by potential threatening powers of rival nations. Is it well that nations 
have competed for land during the last four hundred years ? When "superior" 
peoples are in competition with "inferior," is it well that the latter should be 
driven back, subdued, extinguished? Well for whom — the victors; the living 
defeated; the unborn defeated; society at large? 

EVOLUTION OF COMPETITION * 

The origins of the instincts of competition are probably to be dis- 
covered in the same basic conditions as are those of conflict. The biologist 
finds universal manifestations of the struggle for existence, for survival, 
and for supremacy, which seem clearly to characterize all organic species 
at all times. The seeds sown by every plant, and given opportunity by 
nature to sprout, are far more numerous than those that can possibly come 
to maturity. In every carelessly sown wheat field thousands of plants 
are crowded to extinction by their rivals. Insects, fish, and the lower 
forms of birds and animals start tenfold, or even a thousandfold, more 
young on the roads of life than can possibly arrive. Even the higher 
mammals and man would soon overpeople the earth if high infant mor- 

* See T. N. Carver, Essays in Social Justice (Ch. 2, Economic Competition). 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 207 

tality, war, and famine did not, regularly or recurrently, sweep away the 
surplus. 

The struggle is waged over wide areas. Forest trees of different species 
contest with others for soil, sunlight, and room. But trees and grasses 
are also in fierce rivalry over large areas for the means of growth and 
perpetuation. Man wages fierce wars indeed with his own kind ; but no 
less fierce are his wars with wolves, rats, crows, and pathogenic bacteria. 
The battle is always to the "strong" — provided we properly interpret 
"strength" — in terms, now of the size of the elephant, next of the speed 
of the deer, again of the cooperativeness of the ant, and, finally, of the 
"communized science" of man. 

Darwin taught us that in all the organic world, where "many are called'^ 
and "few are chosen," the conditions of survival (or, more adequately, of 
being able to perpetuate progeny) usually caused progressive modifications 
to take place, modifications not very noticeable at the moment^ perhaps, 
but nevertheless so cumulative that in the long run they could effect the 
transformation of species. These modifications have been fairly number- 
less in variety. They might be in the direction of greater vigor in plant 
growth, the sky-climbing qualities of wet forest trees, the teeth and claws 
of the tiger, the flight powers of the bird, the concealment powers of other 
creatures, or the curiosities of the anthropoids. 

In many cases varieties that gave the best start to the young "won out" 
in the race of life against those that did not, and so the family groupings 
appeared. Where bacteria, grasses, birds, mammals, or human beings 
began to take "mass action," such advantages accrued as to make the basic 
qualities required for such cooperations no less hereditary than horns, or 
fangs, or speed. 

Many of the most active and attractive of the insects, fish, and mammals 
are carnivorous. Carveth Read believes that the long evolution of the 
human species during paleolithic times was effected largely through the 
"flesh-hunting pack." ^ Very early, as far as we can learn, these "pack 
groups" fought one another for valuable hunting territory and, as posses- 
sions of tools increased, doubtless for these also. It is probable that 
for tens of thousands of years the Eurasian continent was the theater 
of incessant conflict of these game-following groups, and that constantly 
the weaker groups — composed of weaker individuals, or of strong individ- 
uals weak in team play — were "driven to the wall," which may often have 
meant being driven into mountain, forest, island, or desert fastnesses, 
where they sometimes evolved into tribes strong enough to raid out and 

^ See his very interesting Origin of Matt (Cambridge, England, 1920). 



2o8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

punish their enemies. The "survival of the fit" thus brought forward those 
"strong" in all the elements making for social worth — of which good 
family life, internal order and justice, indus=triousness, and religiousness 
were certainly no less important than immediate fighting organization, 

COMPETITIONS BETWEEN GROUPS ^ 

Superficial evolutionists sometimes fail fully to realize, or to give explicit 
expression to, the fact that the highest social or cooperative qualities found 
among men probably originated in some obscure way in the struggle for 
existence, no less than did the instincts of pugnacity, bows and arrows, and 
war songs. Where large groups of people fight for food and room whereon 
to grow, that group which to its qualities of internal strength adds a gen- 
erally better family life, or administration of justice, or sincere reli- 
giousness than its rival, will, other things being equal, "win to victory." 
Man to man, the North American Indians were hardly inferior to the 
whites who drove back and partly exterminated them. But the white man's 
science and thrift and habitual practices of large-scale cooperation gave 
him ascendancy from the start. "The fittest will [or in fact do] survive" 
is a safe enough dogma when properly interpreted. But, from the broad 
point of view, an effectively enforced law against dueling may be just as 
important a factor in the survival of a human group as a new type of 
rifle. A religion which can insure that each year shall witness the birth 
of many strong children, destined to reach manhood and womanhood 
under the protection of the monogamous, undivorced family, may con- 
tribute more to the survival of a people than the possession of a battle 
fleet and many warriors. Comparatively weak peoples, living for a gen- 
eration under equitable and well enforced laws, have, within historic times, 
been the victors against strong and arrogant peoples whose social structure 
had become worm-eaten through bad laws and worse law administration. 

It has previously been noted that nearly all beginnings of the governing 
and cultural systems above barbarism are associated with conquest. Con- 
quest is of several possible stages. Primary conquest destroys the peoples 
conquered, except, possibly, children and very young women who bring no 
significant cultural acquisitions to the conquered. Secondary conquest 
enslaves a large part of the adult conquered population, and in a measure 
permits the conservation of the culture, especially the family life and 
religion, of the conquered, even in a new environment. Tertiary conquest 

* Read H. Clay, Economics (Ch. 6, Competition and Association); and C. H. 
Cooley, Social Processes (Ch. 4, Conflict and Cooperation). 



COOPERATION, CONFLICT, AND COMPETITION 209 

leaves the conquered largely in their own homes and in possession of 
their own social inheritance, under conditions of serfdom and forced 
tribute. Perhaps fourth and fifth varieties of conquest should be recog- 
nized, the fourth being like that of Egypt by Great Britain or Porto Rico 
and the Philippines by the United States, where only certain kinds of 
political super-control are exercised. The fifth would resemble that of 
Wales by England, California by the United States, or Dutch South 
Africa by the British Empire.'^ 

D. CONFLICT 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

The expected outcome of competition, as here defined, is to strengthen 
one or both of the competitors and to destroy neither. The expected out- 
come of conflict is to destroy or subjugate one of the parties to the struggle. 

1. Compare man's former conflicts against lions and wolves, with his present 
conflicts against mosquitoes, the bacteria of tuberculosis, and the cotton boll- 
weevil. 

2. Compare the historic conflict between Mohammedanism and Christianity 
with that between French and British in the eighteenth century for posses- 
sions in North America. 

3. Compare former conflicts of Catholicism and Protestantism with their 
present competitive relationships. 

ORIGINS OF CONFLICT^ 

The struggle for existence, as already noted, brings man into ceaseless 
conflict (using the word in a very broad sense) with other species than 
his own. Individual man has had to defend himself from many kinds 
of enemies in the plant and animal world. He has warred on wolves and 
on lions, on weeds and on the jungle, against tuberculosis and cancer. 

The ultimate goals of this struggle are the elimination of those foes 
with whom compromise is impossible, and a harmonious adjustment with 
those that can be let live. Bears are now "preserved' in Yellowstone 
Park, zoological gardens, and some forested regions — but otherwise they 
are destroyed. Useless plants are kept down as far as practicable. Every- 
where civilized men are trying to eliminate hurtful species of insects and 
microorganisms. 

'^ Read Ross, Principles (Ch. ig, Institutional Competition). 

* Read Wells, Social Forces (pp. 155-73, The Common Sense of Warfare); and 
Sumner, Folkzvays (Ch. 3, The Struggle for Existence). 



2IO EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Toward those of his own species his attitude has been similar to that 
toward the larger animals. Where it became a case of destroy or be 
destroyed, — through starvation or violence, — conflicts arose. That for 
long ages in the past these were general and destructive can not be doubted. 
But, as cooperating groups grew larger, "balances of power" were often 
established which kept the peace for considerable periods. Perhaps these 
will grow between nations, as they now prevail within all strong nations 
where constructive competition is the only survival of destructive conflict. 

Wars between groups of somewhat equal evolution have, probably, 
been the nurseries of many of the best qualities of man. But few social 
economists now doubt that the day of wars of this kind is over, if human 
society is to continue its advances onward and upward. Here lie some 
of the largest social problems of the future. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Adams^ H. C. Description of Industry (Ch. I, Work). 

BoGARDUs, E. S. The Essentials of Social Psychology (Ch. 12, Group 

Conflicts). 
Clay^ Henry. Econofni-cs (Ch. 13, Unemployment and Overproduc- 
tion). 
Conn, H. W. Social Heredity and Social Evolution (Ch. 9, Egoism in 

the Human Race). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Organizaiion (Ch. 18-20, Caste and Its Sociological 

Significance; and Ch. 2y, Hostile Feeling Between Classes). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 30, The Diversification and Conflict 

of Ideas; and Ch. 12-13, The Competitive Spirit; and, The Higher 

Emulation). 
Holmes, S. J. Trend of the Race (Ch. 9, The Selective Influence of 

War). 
Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 26 and 27, The Transition from 

Struggle to Cooperation; and, The Actual Conflict of Interests in 

Modern Society). 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE processes of domination are very completely shown in any family 
group. It is biologically natural that parents should dominate chil- 
dren, and it may be that there are innate (original nature) causes for 
many of the usual dominations of wife by husband, or of husband by wife. 
Older children tend spontaneously to dominate the younger, and often 
the younger are glad to submit and follow — up to some point where they 
think they are being imposed upon. Out of doors, boys will frequently 
dominate girls of their own or greater age. Of two brothers, the younger 
will sometimes lead by virtue of greater energy or will power. 

In every school the teacher is, first, selected as one who can dominate — 
physically, morally, or intellectually, and usually all three — and is given 
authorization to make such domination effective. As far as practicable 
discipline is humanized, perhaps "democratized" ; but society always 
exercises control over the young through domination, open or disguised. 

In all of our social contacts we are perpetually finding those whom we 
can lead or direct, and others who can lead or direct us. Social life and 
government may strive to be democratic, but we also need leaders. In 
times of great social stress we still pray for the strong man, even as 
autocrat or dictator. 

Processes of democratization are hardly less universal. Weaker and 
subjected individuals tend very generally to aspire to equality, except when 
the inertias of custom operate powerfully from infancy. Among bands 
of primitive men certain kinds of equality prevailed, and certain kinds of 
democracy of action were found. Among the primitive Teutonic peoples 
chiefs appear often to have been elected by their fellows and to have held 
office on sufferance based upon effective leadership. Such democracy 
seems to have coexisted with a large degree of domination by the chief, 
once he was elected. 

American life is filled with aspirations for more democracy. Naturally, 
these are most in evidence amongst persons apparently deprived of some- 
thing which they desire — a vote, property, social position, culture, access 
to public places, free intermarriage. Very early children in homes, schools, 
playgrounds, or shops learn to look upon certain conduct of rulers or 
leaders as autocratic, oppressive, or undemocratic. Some kind of "equal 
rights" are denied. The present generation is keenly aware of the 
struggles of women for suffrage, of negroes for equal opportunities of 
several kinds, of manual workers for some voice in the direction of the 



212 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

agencies that employ them. Educators strive for more "democracy" in 
schools, municipalities increasingly democratize facilities for recreation, 
and the availability of printed matter (we hope) democratizes culture. 

1. What was meant formerly by "government by the few"? In ancient 
civilizations, and throughout the Middle Ages, why was it commonly assumed 
that the "few" could govern the family, the church, the city, the army, or the 
state, better than the !'many"? In what ways did the social order of those 
times seem to make the strong stronger and the weak weaker? 

2. In what ways do the few control or govern in such modern enterprises 
as the family, a church, an industry, the army, or a transportation system? 
What are the means now usually adopted whereby the exercise of the most 
important functions in a social group shall be assigned to those most com- 
petent to discharge them? Separately consider in this connection the means 
by which men are selected, and if necessary prepared for, these posts : prin- 
cipal of a school ; superintendent of a factory ; general in an army ; managing 
editor of a newspaper; captain of a ship; director of research; mayor of 
a city ; captain of an athletic team. 

3. What are frequently alleged to be "undemocratic" or undesirable oligar- 
chical tendencies in modern life? Separately consider: the family; economic 
groupings; political groups; political parties; church organizations (Congrega- 
tional, Methodist, Roman Catholic) ; unions of workers ; organizations of 
scholars. 

4. In what ways does it seem to you that historically the various forms of 
oligarchy — aristocracy, autocracy, and the like — tended in the long run to 
impair, rather than to strengthen, the individuals, or the lineage of indi- 
viduals, who represent the "few"? In what ways historically does oligarchy 
seem to have impaired the "many"? 

5. It is a fair assumption in sociology that any institution that persists for 
many generations, and that is especially characteristic of dynamic peoples, 
must possess much social virtue. What do you infer to have been the merits 
that over long ages made possible such oligarchic organizations as : the 
patriarchal family ; monarchical and imperialistic control of conquered peo- 
ples, including manifestations in feudalism; the aristocratic organizations of 
Greek and Roman and some medieval city-states; the hierarchical organiza- 
tions of many churches; the forms of organization taken by modern cor- 
porate production? 

6. Enumerate the various devices of which you have read by which oli- 
garchs maintained their ascendancy, including specialization of military func- 
tions, religious taboos, primogeniture, control of knowledge, legalism, bureau- 
cracy, and the like. 

7. Enumerate the various means whereby, in such groups as the family, the 
church, the state, and industry, oligarchical controls have been mitigated. 



DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 213 

Separately consider such means as constitutions, and other documented laws 
or rules ; employment of representatives ; development of councils ; unions or 
associations among the many; and organized revolt. 

8. Show how school discipline has been "democratized" in recent years, and 
what are some aspirations of educators that are as yet only slightly realized. 

9. Trace various stages in the evolution of modern political democracy, 
from Magna Charta to the granting of general suffrage to women. In your 
opinion, were many of these advances greatly belated — that is, from the 
standpoint of the national good, other conditions having remained the same? 

10. Why, in your opinion, are there at present so few demands for the 
democratization of religious organizations, and so many for the democratiza- 
tion of industrial organizations? 



. - DOMINATION AND OLIGARCHY ^ 

Inequalities of all sorts are always found among the members of any 
social group, as well as among groups themselves. The young are unequal 
to the mature in physical strength, training, and all the results of experi- 
ence. Women are unequal to men, commonly, in certain readily recogniz- 
able forms of physical strength, mobility, and instinctive aggressiveness. 
Individual men, even those born from the same parents and reared under 
the same conditions, will at maturity differ, sometimes very greatly, in 
physical size, agility, mental ability, esthetic sensibility, and in other 
respects. A thousand men of certain ages chosen at random from among 
the Scotch would show an average stature, and, probably, physical strength, 
considerably superior to those of a thousand South Chinese similarly 
selected. A thousand Congo negroes taken at random would probably 
stand out as superior to a thousand Norwegians similarly chosen in 
respect to powers of resisting malaria and interests in group music. It 
may be that hereditary inequalities of considerable moment as respects 
certain intellectual and social qualities exist as between Irish and Germans, 
Egyptians and Soudanese, Chinese and Malays, Slavs and Celts. 

But these native inequalities may become inferiorities only under 
some conditions. Bodily strength may be a tremendous asset at one stage 
of social evolution and a negligible one at others. Intense religiousness 
may under some conditions count as a resource, at others as a liability. 
Even slavishness — in the more complete sense — may make for survival 
in one age and for slow destruction in another. Civilized society obviously 
places a high premium on the qualities designated by the word "intel- 

^ Read Ross, Principles (Ch. 11, Domination; Ch. 29, Segregation and Subordina- 
tion; Ch. 30, Equalization; and 37, Liberation). 



214 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ligence." Certain social qualities seem also to be of great advantage to 
their possessors. But the assumption that these forms of individual or 
social power will always be proportionately advantageous to their pos- 
sessors is, obviously, unwarranted. 

The natural inequalities of the men, women, and children composing 
the human species lead inevitably in all group life to those forms of organ- 
ization in which each grade of ability shall be induced or required to play 
the part it can best perform. Specialization of service becomes a necessary 
means of survival. 

The young of every species must occupy subordinate places, follow 
rather than lead, and often make sacrifices for elders— who in the order 
of nature have already made sacrifices for them. 

Distinctions of sex begin far down in the plant and animal world, and 
lead later to certain very distinct forms of domination or even "oligarchy." 
In the human species the male seems very early to have specialized in 
fighting and in those forms of production that utilized his already developed 
fighting and roving qualities. Women specialized toward the care of 
children and the conveniently accessible forms of local and "sessile" pro- 
duction. Both parents, naturally, were the "oligarchic" rulers of the 
plastic children. 

Within any given band, horde, or clan, there prevailed always inequali- 
ties of physical strength, experience, boldness, or wisdom. In times of 
stress the "strong" individual (as respects any of these qualities) would 
gradually come to the front, gain ascendancy, and more or less dominate 
the rest as long as these did not "combine" against him. Normally, this 
leadership was advantageous to the weaker, and so in most groups the 
led were just as eager for guidance as the leaders were for domination.^ 

The numberless oligarchical processes through which the strong and the 
weak (as respects any kind of quality whatever) differentiate to their 
respective parts are always to be observed in the group life around us. 
Every boys' gang develops its few bosses or tyrants. Political parties, 
school faculties, labof unions, stockholders' groups, schools, and even 
mobs, soon give selective prominence to the more aggressive, better in- 
formed, or naturally "executive." "Instincts of leadership," composite 
and ill defined though they commonly are, probably exist in all men, wait- 
ing a social situation adapted to calling them into action. "Instincts of 
followership" are doubtless no less omnipresent, seeking always the master 
mind or character' that can direct and reinforce. 

^Holmes, Trend of the Race (Ch. 5, The Inheritance of Mental Abilities). 



DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 215 

Artificial inequalities, produced by human action, are found in nearly 
all kinds of social groups or between social groups. Primitive con- 
querors disabled captives by blinding or otherwise maiming them in order 
that they could be safely kept. Slaves, denied the use of weapons, horses, 
or assemblage, are thus forced to remain the inferiors of their masters. 
Where political strength is increased by literacy, denial of public educa- 
tion necessarily accentuates the inferiority of the illiterate. 

Custom, with its taboos, and its later evolutions in statutes and 
ordinances, estabHshes numberless artificial inequalities. Some are thus 
denied the opportunity of owning property or of carrying on specified 
vocations. Particular forms of dress or food are prohibited, often to 
the disadvantage of the inferiors. 

Artificial inequalities often reinforce natural inequalities. Among prim- 
itive and even half-civilized peoples the hunchbacked and mentally sub- 
normal are persecuted because of their afflictions. Women, inferior to 
men in agility, are forced to follow vocations like tillage, which still further 
diminish their mobility. Conquered tillers of the soil are deprived of 
weapons, and required by ordinance to obtain permission of their masters 
before they can move. Even the superior individuals of "inferior" races 
may not share in prized vocations. The propertyless have also been 
denied suffrage until with a few years in England and America. 

All these social tendencies toward creating and extending inequalities 
are not necessarily antisocial. As was pointed out in the chapter on 
social control, they may well represent very purposive, and perhaps very 
necessary, means at certain stages of social evolution of bringing about 
.the "greatest good to the greatest number." It is quite possible that even 
what appear to be the unrelievedly cruel customs of exiling lepers and 
persecuting morons may have once been actually conducive to group 
welfare. Slavery, the subjection of women, and government by military 
leaders may all have been essential conditions of sound social evolution. 
Many of us still believe that the right of family inheritance of private 
property is an essential means of insuring right forms of family well-being, 
notwithstanding that the practice may tend, over the generations, to accen- 
tuate inequalities. 

Exploitation of followers is the ceaseless temptation that comes to 
oligarchs.^ Up to a certain point, the leadership of the strong is wholly 
beneficent to the weak. Therefore the weak, out of their collective 
advantages of security, increased happiness, and wealth, can well afford 

^ Ross, Principles (Ch. 12, Exploitation). 



2i6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

to pay toll to the few who shepherd them — toll of adulation, remembrance, 
rank and prestige, or command over riches. In nearly all groups situations 
readily develop in which leaders must make exactions of service, wealth, 
or even life, in order to safeguard the interests of the group. Habits of 
continuing exactions after the need has passed away are easily formed. 
The man of the primitive family refuses to do manual work, even after 
the necessities of his warrior days are over. Kings draw heavy tribute in 
times of peace. Well paid specialists form bureaucracies and conspire to 
perpetuate the posts in which they render their first service. Delegates, 
representatives, and executives become "professional" politicians. 

Inevitably there follows institutionalization of the conditions making 
for oligarchy. Rank and function and class become hereditary. Political, 
sumptuary, educational, and other privileges are denied to inferiors. 
Elaborate approaches guard accession to membership in select guilds, 
classes, or groups. Until the disinherited rank and file revolt, the exac- 
tions of political and other aristocracies tend to become more severe and 
unescapable. The strong become more predatory, the weak more con- 
firmed in their subjection.* 

Oligarchy is the term used in this book to cover those forms of control 
in all kinds of social groups, from the family to an empire or international 
church, in which directive power resides in the hands of a few without 
purposive and formal delegation from the many. (Where the many 
delegate power of domination or position to specialists or representatives, 
whilst retaining power to withdraw the delegated authority, we have 
simply an organized form of democracy). 

Readers will find it necessary to overcome their preconceptions and 
prejudices in employing the term "oligarchy," which has long been used 
to characterize objectionable social phenomena wherever democracy has 
been making headway. Fundamentally, oligarchy has been a basic tendency 
in group life, at least as long as democracy. It might well be contended 
that oligarchy and democracy represent two indispensable but mutually 
opposed forces in human nature, without each of which society would be 
as impossible as would be chemical compounds without the mutual attrac- 
tions and repulsions that give resultants in chemical equilibrium, or the 
planetary systems without the centrifugal and centripetal forces that hold 
the planets and sun in their places. 

The pathological effects of oligarchy are very familiar to our day 
and generation, because only within the last few centuries have there taken 

*For a typically German interpretation see F. Oppenheimer, The State (Ch. 3 and 
S, The Feudal State). 



DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 217 

place the greater revolutionary movements away from oligarchic controls. 
The histories of reformation movements in religion, of campaigns for 
the eradication of slavery, and of widespread democratization of political 
activities are largely of the last two or three centuries. Even within the 
lifetimes of men now living there have occurred some far-reaching reforms 
designed to free from their disabilities certain classes heretofore the 
victims of long perpetuated (and perhaps once beneficent) oligarchic con- 
trols — children, women, exploited races, debtors, wage-earners, dissenters, 
'the physically afflicted, prisoners, and the naturally improvident. 

Numberless processes are at work leveling some of the bastions of his- 
toric privilege. The autocratic powers of kings pass away in war. Entailed 
landed wealth dissolves into democratic ownership under heavy taxation. 
Public education brings to the front many leaders able to cope equally 
with those of favored birth and rearing. Gunpowder destroyed feudalism, 
the printing press and photography helped break the powers of kings. 
State socialism, capable of producing its own type of oligarchs, now 
threatens the powers of stored wealth. 

EQUALIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION ^ 

The word "democracy" suggests a variety of aspirations and tendencies 
in modern societies. Many of these are necessarily vague, and some con- 
stitute favorable fields for metaphysical speculation. Practical results in 
social reform — of good or of bad kinds "in the long run" — ^are, however, 
usually accomplished by the method of the drive — that is, of defining 
some fairly concrete objective, then by reiterated insistence that the attain- 
ment of such objective will increase democracy, and finally the marshaling 
of political or other forces toward its attainment. 

A movement for more democracy implies some kind of a struggle for 
"equality." As noted before, men are born into the world unequal. The 
younger is, up to a certain point, unequal to the older, the female to the 
male in some respects, and the small of body or mind to the large of body 
or mind. But experience and growth and gain are apt to accentuate these 
inequalities. "To him that hath shall be given; and from him that hath 
not shall be taken away even that which he hath"— that is, in part, nature's 
process. But man adds to nature's work in many cases. Because women 
are physically weak he imposes still further handicaps through custom, 
law, and, sometimes, religion. Children born of parents without wealth 

^ See T, N. Carver, Essays in Social Justice (Ch. 10, Constructive Democracy); 
and Ross, Principles (Ch. 53, Institutions — The State). 



2i8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

are already at a disadvantage; but if therefore they are refused suffrage, 
freedom of migration, or access to the better vocations, then has society 
still further penalized them as unequals. "It is bad enough to be born 
with a black face," said the young negro. But if, because of the black 
face, the owner is refused access to good schools, good jobs, good churches, 
and the privilege of suffrage, then is his lot hard indeed. 

Democracy means, then, in essence, social attempts on the one hand 
to mitigate somewhat the hard effects of natural inequalities, and, on the 
other, to remove, where it seems safe to do so, the artificial inequalities 
imposed by man. (It should be clear to the sociological reader that these 
were often necessary for the. safety of the group or stocks and probably 
developed desires for "exploitation" only in their later stages.) "Lift 
up the naturally weak, but above all remove man's chains from the weak" — 
that, in a sense, is the commandment of democracy. Hundreds of con- 
crete applications of modern aspirations for democracy are readily to be 
disentangled from the history of Europe and America since the thirteenth 
century.*' To the philosophers these movements may be chiefly significant 
as expressing the freeing of the human spirit. To the sociologist they 
may seem, rather, the slowly evolved means of producing the social solidar- 
ities that enable their possessors to "survive" on a larger scale than here- 
tofore. 

To the humane idealist man — a man, if necessary — is "an end in him- 
self," and is, therefore, in some absolute and even super-mundane fashion 
entitled to the fullest growth, development, or "self-realization" of which 
he is capable.. Hence, in so far as "equalities" of various kinds and the 
other fruits' of democratic aspirations assure him this, they are "good" 
in a very absolute sense. Similarly, the common law attaches great im- 
portance to the "sanctity" of life as among the most basic of rights. 
Christianity at its best has always held that the human soul — any soul, 
even that of the imbecile, or criminal, or one-day-old infant — is "infinitely 
precious" in the sight of God. To men of certain other faiths, even all 
sentient things, because created to enjoy life, are sacred from injury or 
deliberate extinction. 

From these points of vantage it is an easy progress to the conviction 
that such democratic aspirations as those for knowledge, suffrage, freedom 
of migration, liberty, participation in managerial functions (a kind of 
private "right of suffrage," obviously), freedom of marriage and reproduc- 
tion, liberty of conscience and expression of ideas, and the like, are some- 

'See H. G. Wells' very suggestive interpretations in Ch. 35, 39, and 41 of his 
Outline of History. 



DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 219 

how goods in themselves, and worth their price, even if they diminish 
somewhat the visible efficiency of political, religious, or economic institu- 
tions, or lower the standards of racial excellence. 

Few students of social science, however, think of democracy chiefly in 
terms of "good to the individual." Sound democracy, giving self-respect- 
ing, hopeful, and strengthened individuals, is best also "in the long run" 
for the collectivity of men — perhaps the family, school, church, and in- 
dustry no less than the village community or the nation. All progressives 
'have to recognize certain possible losses in efficiency in transitions from 
social conditions where men pin their faith to various forms of domination 
to those others in which "demos" has a voice. Nevertheless, they justify 
the usual movements toward democracy on the ground that, given time, 
experience, and especially education, social efficiencies of the better sorts 
will be produced and sustained by reasonable democracy better than by 
any other procedure. Of course, much depends upon actual interpretation 
of that word "reasonable" ! 

"Social democracy" now tends to replace, as a pooling phrase of aspi- 
rations, the older terms "liberty," "equality," and other catchwords of 
democratic ideals. Political democracy has to very substantial degrees 
been realized in America and some other countries — that is, as tested by 
extension of suffrage, mitigation of artificial restrictions on office-holding, 
equality before the law, and general access to such publicly supported 
facilities as roads, parks, schools, and libraries.'^ 

The aspirations of social democracy lie largely outside of political 
fields, although political means must often be used for their realization. 
"Equality"* of bargaining power in transactions where labor is bought or 
sold is an end sought by manual workers through labor organizations and 
other means. "Participation in managerial functions" on the part of the 
rank and file of workers in large organizations is another end — necessarily 
vague as yet, since "equality" of managerial functions is hardly imagin- 
able. Even some teachers in city school systems think that the good of 
the schools could be enhanced if in some way their collective experience 
and judgment could be utilized in determination of policies and in admin- 
istration. Nearly all sympathetic observers agree that the morale or 
dignity of the collective workers could be improved by some such democ- 
ratization of administration; but not a few of these are apprehensive of 
the^ price that might have to be paid in lowered efficiency. 

Perhaps we should include under the phrase "social democracy" numer- 
ous current aspirations toward the equalization of educational and other 

'Read C. H. Cooley, Social Organisation (Part III, The Democratic Mind). 



220 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

cultural opportunities. There are other aspirations that belong properly 
to the domain of religious democracy. Mitigation of man-made restric- 
tions^ — racial, religious, sumptuary— on free intermarriage is demanded 
by some in the name of democracy. Finally come those altruistic, but 
seldom realized, longings, for democracy of fellowship — where do these 
belong, and how far should they go ? 

Economic or sumptuary disabilities ^ constitute the most pronounced 
of segregating factors in contemporary social life. Communism assembles 
a host of social aspirations looking to the purposive and collective mitiga- 
tion of these disabilities. "To each according to his needs ; from each 
according to his abilities," expresses the desires of a contemporary school 
of communistic socialism. Within each family, as well as within each 
religious community, army regiment, and boarding school, that condition 
substantially prevails now. But few sociologists believe that men could 
make it prevail advantageously amongst multitudes of adults. Neverthe- 
less, the ideals involved are in a sense democratic — perhaps the most 
democratic of all, if their realization were at all practiable, human nature, 
education, and social valuations being what they now are. 

PROBLEMS OF HARMONIZING DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION ^ 

Civilized societies will doubtless demand increasing measures of democ- 
racy, and they can not escape certain kinds and degrees of domination. 
Hence arise numberless specific problems of adjusting or harmonizing 
the two mutually opposed tendencies. Many of these problems depend 
for their final solution on fuller and more scientific education than societies 
can yet organize and conduct. A few of these problems are submitted 
here for illustrative purposes. 

a. Specialization of all productive functions, including defense, the 
administration of justice, education and research, necessarily involves 
placing in positions of large responsibility the gifted and naturally strong. 
Nearly all hereditary aristocracies originated in the families of natural 
leaders whose advantageous place, rank, or possessions were given for 
service actually rendered. Contemporary industry, education, army organ- 
ization (and more especially in times of national danger), and party 
politics naturally place in positions of authority the gifted and instinctively 
dominating — on no other conditions can equal efficiency be assured. 

* See L. Abbott, The Spirit of Democracy (Ch. 9, Industrial Democracy). 

° The interested reader will find all the chapters in T. N. Carver, Essays in Social 
Justice, pertinent here. But see especially Ch. 6 (How Ought Wealth to Be Dis- 
tributed?) and Ch. 9 (Socialism and the Present Unrest). 



DOMINATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION 221 

But, in positions of ascendancy, these gifted leaders tend readily to 
become bureaucratic, even autocratic. Possibly only rare and extraor- 
dinary "strong men" can escape this failing. Political democracy has, of 
course, sought correctives in popular election, periodic reelection, and 
various legal checks on the independence of action of its legislators, 
executives and other leaders. Where these have failed, political radicalism 
asks for the "recall" and the "referendum." 

Out of these conditions comes inefficiency. It is bad enough to choose 
by popular election public engineers, superintendents of schools, or expert 
accountants. It would be worse still so to choose a military commander 
or a railway president. Hence the correctives of competitive civil service, 
appointment by individuals or boards directly representing citizens, and 
various other devices. The modern municipality is a genuine social labor- 
atory wherein are being tested a series of devices intended to reconcile 
the somewhat opposed demands for democracy and social efhciency of 
other kinds. 

b. Large-scale operations give rise to similar problems. Many pro- 
ductive functions — military defense, transport, mining, manufacturing, 
tropical agriculture, municipal water supply, urban schools, and the like — 
can be economically and efficiently conducted when thousands of workers, 
from highly expert to very routine operatives, are marshaled into cooper- 
ating teams. A large proportion of governmental functions fall into this 
class. Now states and 1*he nation take part in the process. "Centraliza- 
tion" proceeds apace in the administration of education, police, postal 
service, food inspection, and care of the state's wards. 

But centralization tends steadily, like specialization, — which it indeed 
renders necessary, — ^toward creating conditions favorable to bureaucracy, 
domination, autocracy, oligarchy. Even in our democratic American 
states and cities, the individual voter views with dismay the adminis- 
trative monsters which he and his fellows, like modern Frankensteins, have 
created, and which no longer yield to their wills. In economic fields the 
stockholder in the large corporation finds himself little more than a 
spectator in the administrative organizations that he has created and now 
feels helpless to control. Investigations, surveys, supervising boards, and 
other devices are tried as a means of giving that ultimate unit of democracy, 
the individual citizen, comprehension of the social machinery through 
which his democratic will is supposed to operate, but which may be in 
fact simply oligarchy and domination in new guises. 

c. Democracy of fellowship^ — is it desirable or practicable? Large- 
scale operations all tend to become impersonal, it was previously shown. 



222 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

There seem to be fixed limits to any man's fellowship contacts. Even 
where the thousands that make up a man's neighbors or economic cooper- 
ators are very much alike — as, for example, the students in a college — 
he tends to pick a congenial dozen or hundred with whom his relation- 
ships are those of democratic fellowship. In a world of sensitive souls, 
endless pain is caused by the "exclusiveness" of social groups — from a 
school girls' clique to the "Four Hundred" of New York City. How far 
and under what conditions is such exclusiveness capable of correction, 
granting right ideals and good will? 

d. Democracy of marriage presents similar difficulties. Not a few 
American states prohibit intermarriage of persons of basically different 
races. Many churches oppose strong barriers to the marriage of those of 
unlike faiths. Possibly good eugenic justification can at times be found 
for the first, and social justification for the second. What degree of 
impairment of individual interests is actually involved in each case ? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bryce^ J. Modern Democracies (Ch. 75, Oligarchies Within Democ- 
racies; Ch. 78-80, Present Tendencies and Future Prospects). 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Organisation (Ch. 15, Democracy and Distinction). 

Ellis, H. The Task of Social Hygiene (Ch. 2, The Changing Status of 
Women). 

Kelsey, C. Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 10, Social Institutions). 

Smith, W. R. Educational Sociology (Ch. 9, The Growth of Democracy 
in Relation to Education). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 6, Slavery). 

Turner, F. J. The Frontier in American History (Ch. 9, Contribution 
of the West to American Democracy). 



CHAPTER XIX 

MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSES 

A. INSTITUTIONALIZATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

WHEN any social practice is long continued, develops a paid staff, 
and operates under well defined customs, regulations, and laws, it 
is customary to speak of it as an institution. The following are examples : 
slavery; the customary method of caring for orphans in the United 
States ; the public-school system ; any established religious system ; 
political parties ; ancestor worship ; marriage ; departments of government ; 
voluntary service organizations like the Y. M. C. A. ; established charity 
organizations and societies ; college football ; the theater ; newspapers. 

The processes by which occasional voluntary and relatively unorganized 
methods of performnig service become organized, fixed, and permanent 
is the social process of institutionalization. 

1. What seem to you some of the great advantages of institutions, or of 
the institutionalization of collective social processes? Compare with the for- 
mation of useful habits and routines in our individual behavior. 

2. In long established institutions that have become somewhat decadent or 
highly mechanized, what objectionable qualities are clearly manifest? Con- 
sider especially such institutions as slavery; dueling; feudalism; absolute mon- 
archy; medieval monasticism; public schools in our largest cities; old English 
secondary schools ; long established political parties ; the criminal court insti- 
tutions of the United States; and prisons. 

3. What have been your experiences with attempts to reform or make more 
progressive some long established institutions ? 

4. Would it be uneconomical for societies to dispense with such institutions 
as city fire departments, historic church organizations, fraternal organizations, 
ancestor worship, and legislative libraries? 

5. What are the frequent characteristics of institutions suggested by such 
terms as red tape, bureaucracy, and circumlocution? Review historical at- 
tempts of great innovators to uproot old institutions and replace them by new 
and vital institutions, considering especially Mohammed, Loyola, "General" 
Booth, Garrison, Franklin, and Roosevelt. 

6. Review causes and consequences of revolutionary movements affecting 
institutions such as early Christianity, the revival of learning, the Protestant 

223 



224 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Reformation, the invention of gunpowder, the mechanical revolution, the 
French Revolution, and the modern trade-union movement. 

7. What would wide diffusion of knowledge of social institutions and social 
values (resulting from social science studies in schools and colleges) probably 
do to produce flexibility and adaptability in institutions? What are some in- 
stitutions in American life as to whose social usefulness there is much debate? 
Consider especially the political party system, intercollegiate sports, the moving 
picture, fraternal organizations, prisons, orphanages, state universities. 

ORIGINS ^ 

Institutions represent the numberless efforts of society or particular 
societies to create adequate machinery for the easy discharge of various 
social functions. There is imposed, among other things, specialization of 
service. Something heretofore performed on a voluntary basis is placed in 
the hands of paid servants — the conduct of amusements or schools, the care 
of orphans, the defense of the country, the inspection of food. There 
grows up a long series of customs, regulations, and laws. In ages w^hen 
people can readily be made to believe in divine intervention in the affairs 
of men, the belief is established that institutions have divine sanction. 
Many, even the wisest, have defended such institutions as slavery, the 
autocracy of kings, the rights of conquerors to the land of the conquered, 
marriage, and property, as divinely sanctioned. Institutions often come 
to possess buildings, expensive equipment, and capital investments. These 
usually contribute greatly to the stability of such institutions, and also 
to their unresponsiveness to influences of change. These externals become 
powerful means of control and adjustment of younger members to institu- 
tional life. A fraternal hall, a dimly lighted church, old and vast school 
buildings, and the like, strongly impress young and plastic minds, and help 
shape them to loyalties toward the institutions. Social science finds 
numberless methods by which political parties, industrial organizations, 
social sets, and the like, gradually initiate and habituate their young and 
responsive members through sheer pressure of institutional suggestion. 

The advantages of institutions are similar to the advantages of estab- 
lished routines and habits in the individual — such as those of speech, 
ceremonious behavior toward others,' habits of work, social valuations, and 
the like. They serve to economize energy, to organize effort, and to 
conserve the social inheritance. All large cities almost necessarily have 
their public work conducted by political agencies that have become crystal- 

^Ross, Principles (Ch. 22-25, Organization and Deterioration; and Ch. 40, Institu- 
tionalization). 



MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSED 225 

lized as institutions — such as departments of parks, police, schools, street 
repair, fire protection, public libraries, and the like. In order to prevent 
'/too much politics," the institution of Civil Service is established, M^hich 
corrects some abuses, but also brings in its train some new social handi- 
caps. In primitive and early civilized societies parentless children are 
taken care of by volunteer effort. Later, organizations accept this function 
or develop means of performing it on a paid and professional basis. What 
Mras once volunteer care of the sick gives rise to hospital institutions. 
Men once gathered together with very little formality for the purpose 
of collective worship. Ultimately, great hierarchies of specialist service 
are evolved, together with extensive rituals, regulations, and formal pro- 
cedures. In all of these cases the ends sought are efficiency and economy, 
even though in numberless instances societies make the mistake of allow- 
ing their institutions to become too elaborate, or else of prolonging their 
existence beyond their seasons of genuine usefulness. 

The disadvantages of institutions are found in their seemingly 
inevitable tendency to become fixed, unprogressive, and exploitative. Here 
again they greatly resemble "habitistic" routines in the individual economy. 
They tend, as it were, to becomiC ends in themselves. They develop what 
are customarily known as "vested interests." The world moves by them, 
they cease to perform useful functions, and yet they remain alive as vast 
agencies demanding public support. Western mankind has become so 
familiar during the last thousand years with efforts to ckmolish such out- 
grown institutions as slavery, divine right of kings, feudalism, dueling, 
oligarchy, taboos on science, and the like, that many people find it difficult 
now to think of institutions in terms of the great service they render, 
rather than in terms of their obstructiveness and their tendency to become 
parasitic. 

The improvement of institutions constitutes one of the largest aims of 
modern social economy. Life becomes so complex that numberless new 
institutions must constantly be created. Within recent years we have 
seen the rapid evolution of such institutions as corporate production, 
public-school systems, colonization, imperialistic control of underdeveloped 
peoples, state socialism, the press, the moving-picture stage, the trade 
union, and endowments for research. Large proportions of our political, 
economic, religious, and order-maintaining agencies must inevitably be 
institutionalized. Even agencies of sociability, and of the diffusion of 
knowledge and beauty, also tend to become commercialized or otherwise 
organized on an institutional basis. It is increasingly easy, unless given 
more adequate social knowledge, for men to become the victims of their 



226 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

own institutional life — that is, for individuals to become so hampered, to 
be subject to so many institutional obligations, that, like the peasants of 
the age of Louis XIV, they have no margin of energy or aspiration left 
after meeting their obligations to institutional agencies with which they 
have little personal contact and of which they may have even less 
knowledge. 

B. COMMERCIALIZATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. Under what primitive conditions can you imagine trade through barter to 
have begun? If one group of people produce a rare and valuable mineral 
product or type of weapon, how would they discover another product for 
which the first could be exchanged? 

2. What were the characteristics of the first money used in commercial 
transactions? What does the root of the word pecuniary suggest? Pound 

■ (English money unit) ? Of the word currency? Of the word wealth? 

3. What are the functions of bankers? Are these socially valuable to the 
community at large? Why have bankers usually fallen more or less under 
suspicion of extortion? 

4. Is it socially advantageous that stored wealth should take the form of 
loanable wealth and that interest should be charged? What is the derivation 
of the word usury, and why was the exaction of usury made a punishable 
offense? Do people who store wealth, and then make a living by lending 
such wealth, render a service thereby to society? In what ways? 

5. What are the types of service for which wages are usually paid? For 
what types of service is interest usually paid? For what types of value is 
rent usually paid? For what types of service are profits, in the technical 
sense, usually claimed? Which of these types are relatively advantageous to 
society, and which disadvantageous? 

6. In primitive societies the state did not administer justice, but that function 
was exercised usually by relatives or friends of the offended party. As transi- 
tions were made to enforcement of justice by tribal leaders, gangs, or the 
church, there were long eras in which, in a very real sense, justice was "for 
sale." As a transition condition was this advantageous ? In what sense, if 
any, can it be said to-day that justice in America is more apt to go to those 
who can pay well for it? What are the aims of democracy in this regard? 
Interpret the actual working out of the ideal "equality before the law." 

7. Under what conditions, if any, can you imagine religion to have been 
commercialized? What religious advantages to-day seemingly accrue to those 
who cari pay liberally for them? 

8. Throughout the Middle Ages does it appear that amusements, diversions, 



MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSES 227 

and means of recreation were commercialized? Give various examples of the 
- commercialization of amusements in American urban life. Separately discuss : 
theaters; music; recreation grounds; dances; beach facilities; etc. What have 
been the most marked advances in recent years in communization of amuse- 
ment and recreation facilities ? Separately discuss : parks ; beaches ; and other 
facilities. 

9. In what just senses can such phrases as these be used: commercialization 
of news distribution; commercialization of literature; and commercialization of 
research ? 

10. Note historic transitions from commercial ownership to public ownership 
of: highways; education; police protection; fire protection; health protection; 
and other similar functions. 

11. Why has government in many civilized countries undertaken: coinage 
of money ; inspection of banks ; transportation of mails ; maintenance of light- 
houses ; inspection of food-packing ; maintenance of expositions ? 

12. What is meant in current discussion by the term "middle-man" ? Do 
middle-men render a necessary service ? Why are they frequently under sus- 
picion for this service? Do modern conditions of commerce seem to necessi- 
tate multiplication of middle-men? 

13. It is frequently urged that modern business should be conducted with- 
out profits. Are the profits of a corporation the salaries of high-priced offi- 
cials? Are they earned interest on borrowings? Are they the dividends on 
preferred stock? Are they the dividends on common stock? If profits were 
denied, what would tempt courageous, daring, and inventive entrepreneurs or 
other "enterprisers" to inaugurate new activities? 

14. Broadly speaking, what are some of the "social goods," and what are 
some of the "social evils," of commercialization? Are we likely to have more 
or less of it in the future? 

COMMERCIALIZATION OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONS ^ 

The processes of commercialization seem to increase in geometrical 
ratio in civilized societies. Like all other processes that involve some 
depersonalizing of social relationships, there is something mournful about 
commercialization, even if it has to come. Among settlers on the frontier 
hospitality is freely given and received. The advent of the hotel, where 
everything is on a strictly business basis, brings some social losses. In 
the modern city a large proportion of the functions of "entertainment" 
or amusement are evolving toward commercial forms. In the city men 
must pay for water, a commodity to be had for the asking in the rural 
area. In the early stages of transportation, distance communication, 

''Ross. Principles (Ch. 38, Commercialization). 



228 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

nursing, road-building, education, and the lending of money, formal com- 
mercial transactions were few, and informal give-and-take favors were 
many. 

Commercialization, prevails, obviously, because of its fundamental 
economy. The word has an unpleasant sound, largely because we are apt 
to associate it with situations where transitions are taking place. The 
commercialization of dancing, hunting and fishing privileges, hat-checking 
in hotels, and many other functions in which we have been accustomed to 
free and voluntary service, is not welcomed. Nevertheless, it is probably 
inevitable in highly organized societies, and conspicuously in those with 
large mobile membership. 

Public service often replaces private commercial functions, owing to 
necessities for concerted action to meet community needs. Most of 
the police of a city are now public employees assigned to assist and protect 
all alike ; but private concerns still employ watchmen, and some neighbor- 
hoods join forces for some local cooperative protection. Public schools, 
parks, streets, and roads have ceased to charge fees or to serve exclusive 
groups. The post office, municipal water department, and government 
publication bureaus give service supposedly at cost. 

We are reminded by Professor Ross that justice and certain religious 
benefits were essentially commercialized in the Middle Ages without in 
any way exciting indignation. Many persons feel that religion is com- 
mercialized through the charging of rent for pews. It is charged, too, 
that even justice can not be free in fact as well as in name so long as the 
richer contestant is advantaged through his ability to hire the better lawyer 
and to bear the costs of appeals and delays. 

Perhaps many functions tend to pass through these three stages : (a) 
cooperative and joint performance through good will and desire for mutual 
aid, without the formal and measured compensations of a commercial 
transaction, (b) Private performance for stipulated wage or price, with- 
out particular sense of favor on either side in the transaction, (c) Col- 
lective public performance through regularly paid agents, with no profit, 
the beneficiaries paying directly in fees, or indirectly through taxation. 

Middle-men are functionaries in commercial processes whose powers 
and rewards tend greatly to vex the social conscience of our time. Often 
they are little known to either original producer or ultimate consumer. 
Nevertheless, their position enables them easily to create, and profit from, 
certain kinds of monopolization. Ten thousand men may produce the 
wool that must ultimately be used in the clothes of one hundred thousand 
consumers. Between these two parties lie jobbers, manufacturers, tailors, 



MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSES 229 

, and retailers. One or two men may for a time own all the raw wool as 
it moves toward factories. One or two, also, may for a time own all the 
cloth as it moves toward tailors. How much toll will they exact? To 
what extent will they manipulate demand and supply? The ordinary 
citizen can not know, and he is suspicious of the worst. 

Speculation increases the difficulty. Some readily standardized com- 
modities — corn, wheat, cotton — may be owned temporarily in vast quan- 
tities by persons who take no actual part in processes of production, 
transportation, or marketing. They buy and sell titles — ^to grain as to 
bonds — because the circumstances offer opportunity and possible profit. 
Unquestionably, the worlds of original producers and ultimate consumers 
have many problems to solve in regularizing, illuminating, and simplifying 
the complex commercial transactions that characterize large-scale economic 
processes. 

The comm.ercialization of capital greatly perplexed the naive amateur 
economists of former times. Money-lenders have always been a hated 
tribe, except when need for capital pressed. Even church organizations 
have outlawed interest, and the world still looks askance at the man who 
prospers by money-lending. The poor peasants of India pay 60 per cent, 
or more interest in time of need — just as do salaried employees in Ameri- 
can cities, not infrequently. Probably the fundamental inarticulate objec- 
tion to commercialized capital is its seductive character to the poorly in- 
formed or the weak-willed. 

The commercialization of means of self-indulgence in various forms 
sets the hardest tasks for social economists. The liquor traffic, horse- 
racing, and gambling have at times been syndicated on gigantic scales. 
Perhaps sex vice and self-decoration have at times been given redoubled 
exploitative qualities by profiteers. Modern advertising, office-seeking, 
some forms of private education, and the patent medicine traffic are 
examples of what commercialization can do in enhancing unwholesome 
public demands. 

C. LEGALIZATION' 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. What are some of the procedures that must now be taken in most states 
in order that these processes may be "legal" : marriage ; a transfer of lands ; 
the erection of a tenement house ; the peddling of wares on the streets ? 

2. What tendencies are indicated by legislation : prohibiting sale of liquors ; 
requiring a permit to carry a pistol ; giving the Inter-State Commerce Com- 



230 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

mission authority to regulate certain railway rates ; fixing a minimum wage ; 
prohibiting wage-earning work for minors under certain conditions ; restrict- 
ing the sums of money that candidates for public office may spend in fur- 
thering their candidacy? 

3. If all persons were well disposed, could we dispense with nearly all laws 
— such, for example, as those governing automobile traffic, the work of chil- 
dren, the granting of patents, regulation of the disposal of the proceeds of 
failed business enterprises, and the distribution of school funds? 

MULTIPLICATION OF LAWS ^ 

. Complex societies, like all other complex organizations, require co- 
ordination and harmony of operation of processes. A large school, hotel, 
railway system, or even family, must have rules, regulations, and system, 
if disorder, friction, and waste are to be avoided. "Cut the red tape" 
is the slogan, often, of a new reforming administration in city, state, or 
nation. But in a few weeks a lot more red tape is usually made. 

Americans are frequently appalled at the vast increase in statutes en- 
acted by legislatures and by Congress. The enactments of one session 
of a state legislature may require a volume of more than a thousand 
pages. Even lawyers find it difficult to keep pace with the passing of 
ordinances by municipal administrations. Legislatures were formerly 
in session a month or two each year . or biennium ; now they frequently 
sit for six or seven months. Congress is now not in session only for 
relatively short periods. 

A multitude of societies, each designed for the furtherance of some 
worthy objective, become, everywhere in America and other democracies, 
fruitful sources of legislation. The process is about as follows : the 
society is at the outset formed of sensitive and progressive spirits, bent 
on correcting an abuse or promoting some good cause. The organization 
conducts propaganda, "educates the public." If the cause is really sound, 
presently a majority of citizens approve the objects, but are indisposed 
to exert themselves to see that they are realized. A minority are hostile, 
either from conviction oi» because they have opposed interests at stake. 

The next step is "to have a law passed." The state (or nation) thus 
accepts the principle as of general application — as contributing to the 
general welfare. Tens of thousands of enactments now found on the 
statute books of our forty-eight states and the federal government have 
come into being in the manner just indicated. Such legislation always 

^ See especially Ross, Social Control (Ch. 11, Law). 



MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSES 231 

creates friction and is, often, enforced with difficulty because of the 
minorities whose interests or convictions are opposed. Nevertheless, social 
order and progress are gradually assured, and it is difficult to see how, in 
the long run, they could be assured in any other way. 

The philosophical anarchist is opposed to statutes, ordinances, decrees, 
and other means of regulating human freedom through compulsion. He 
prefers that men be "educated" to "do the right," rather than be com- 
pelled. But his conception of the functions of legislation is old-fashioned. 
He has failed to observe that the "penalties" of many modern statutes 
are incidental, even accidental. The primary purpose of much of modern 
legislation is to guide well disposed people — often to insure that the same 
authoritative information is given to all. We are apt to associate new 
legislation — requiring the licensing of marriage and automobiles, the 
recording of deeds, the approval of building plans, and the rest — with 
the correction of abuses. But these arose because of the increasing com- 
plexity of social situations, or rising standards of what is sound and right. 
The primary purpose of large proportions of modern legislation is to 
systematize, regularize, or harmonize transaction and movement in com- 
plicated situations. Such legislation represents a kind of sociological 
bookkeeping welcomed by nearly all well meaning citizens. It is a kind 
of traffic policeman, empowered, indeed, to enforce penalties in the rare 
cases where a recalcitrant or stupid driver causes confusion, but primarily 
functioning as a means of order and efficiency. 

Legislative machinery is probably very inefficient at present — at least, 
one must infer that from the prevalence of contemporary criticism.* In 
democracies legislatures serve the dual purpose of representing general 
constituencies, and of having to address themselves to tasks requiring 
expert knowledge. It is obviously a hard situation to provide for. But 
sociologist and educator must perceive that the future will probably require 
more, rather than less, legislation, and that it behooves society to find 
better means of providing and selecting those who are to perform the 
involved tasks of setting up social sign-boards along the numberless paths 
that societies now elect to follow. 

Large group cooperations are the sources of nearly all contemporary 
legislation. Village communities keep order on the basis of customs ; cities 
must have documented and formally ratified ordinances. The admonition 
caveat emptor governed buying and selling for ages. Then the state 
regularized coinage and currency, weights and measures. Now we have 

* See Wells, Social Processes (pp. 293-321, The Disease of Parliaments). 



232 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

"pure food" laws, meat inspection, legal copyright for brands, and licens- 
ing of dealers. Consumers want standardization and publicity of facts 
relative to those wares that come from afar ; and legislation follows. 

The evolution of a gigantic public-school system necessitates multiplica- 
tion of statutes. So does street and road building, city housing, the keep- 
ing of accounts against the day of income-tax returns, the control of 
factory and mine-working conditions, and the oversight of parentless 
children. The present generation has intimately witnessed the growth 
of legislation designed either to curb abuses or, more properly, to express 
rising social standards, with references to the sale and use of alcoholic 
beverages. 

D. STANDARDIZATION AND PUBLICITY 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. Many centuries ago governments began to fix the "fineness" and weight 
of coins. Why ? More recently they have standardized weights and measures, 
and now it is often illegal to use in selling weights, scales, or measuring con- 
tainers that have not been officially approved. Why? 

2. What is the social significance to you of the physician's "license to prac- 
tise," the public-school teacher's certificate, the officially censored movie, and 
inspected plumbing? 

3. On canned fruits you frequently see the phrase, "Guaranteed under the 
Pure Food and Drugs Act," etc. What does this mean? Are you in favor 
of a law providing for "pure wool" standards in clothing ? Why ? 

4. Many "standard brand" articles are now on the market — Pears' soap, 
Winchester rifles. Waterman pens, Sorosis shoes, and the like. How do these 
simplify your buying from distant producers? 

5. Why are public service corporations now often required to publish 
certain statements exhibiting receipts and expenditures ? Why are newspapers 
and magazines required to publish statements of ownership? 

SOCIAL CONTROL OF STANDARDS ^ 

Collective action must often take the direction of setting standards. 
Early trade used cattle, hides, copper, and other useful things as exchange 
mediums where barter became too cumbersome. But pieces of precious 
metal, by far the most convenient currency, could be adulterated, and it 
was not easy to weigh them. So governments took charge of coinage, 

^ Ross, Principles (Ch. 47, Standards) ; and Kelsey, Physical Basis (Ch. 10, Social 
Institutions). 



MISCELLANEOUS SOCIAL PROCESSES 233 

' guaranteeing fineness and weight — until such emergencies as tempted the 
governing king, tyrant, or oHgarchy to adulterate and underweight the 
coinage itself or to issue "fiat" paper money instead. 

From those simple beginnings to the present, societies, as organized 
in guilds, cities, provinces, and nations, have moved steadily onward in 
standardization of processes and products, and in attendant publicity. 
Laws now impose standards, at least as to minimum qualities, on drugs, 
meats, canned goods, lumber, building materials, and moving pictures. 
Dealers may use only approved weights and measures. Physicians, 
plumbers, firemen, and chaufifeurs must be licensed for the practice of their 
callings. Newspapers must annually advertise their ownership. Railway 
corporations must give the public information as to receipts and expendi- 
tures ; and they have now little control over their trafiic rates, or, in 
war-time, over their wage rates. The public clamors for a "purity law" 
for textile fabrics. 

Those producers who must market their products over wide areas are 
finding it increasingly advantageous to "standardize" their brands, and 
to evoke the publicity of advertising. Consumers, confessing to poor 
powers of discrimination, and able to give little time to study pf goods, 
prefer to buy "branded" shoes, oranges, razors, paper, pens, automobiles, 
or baseballs. Producers put millions of dollars into advertising Ivory 
soap, Patrick cloth. Kodaks, and Stickley furniture, in the expectation 
that utilizers will, out of their sense of confidence in the reputation of 
the sellers, pay abundantly for this. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Adams^ H. C. Description of Industry (Ch. 13, Business Integration). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Organisation (Ch. 28-29, Institutions and the 

Individual). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Part VI, Pecuniary Valuation). 
Spencer, H. Principles of Sociology (Part V, Political Institution). 
Todd, A. J. Theories of Social Progress (Ch. 21-29, Processes of Making 

Institutions). 
Withers, H. The Meaning of Money (Ch, i and 2). 



CHAPTER XX . 
SOCIAL VALUES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

ARRANGE in some provisional order of importance the "things" that you 
now "value" or desire persistently — including such diverse objectives as 
health, travel, more knowledge, vengeance, personal decoration, love, wealth, 
friendship. 

Compare these with your remembered desires at age ten. Compare with 
your expected desires at age sixty. 

2. Some "values" seem largely individual; and some collective or social. 
Each person strives toward his personal survival, safety, wealth, and general 
gratification of desires. In what ways does a person's desire for a clean, 
well governed city seem more social than his desire for a fine private house of 
his own? Is the keeping of an expensive painting in a residence more or 
less "social" than keeping one in a church ? In what ways does the com- 
munity act to insure the security of your property? In what ways do you 
depend upon yourself? 

3. Have you ever felt "endangered" by foreign war-making enemies? To 
what does the present generation in America owe its "security" ? Contrast 
our situation with that of : the Armenians during the last fifty years ; the 
Macedonians during the last century; the French since i860; our forefathers 
in 1750. Why the differences? 

Why do so many civilized men object to war? Were our offensive wars 
in 1776, 1847, 1861, 1898, and 191 7 wrong? What were we "defending" in 
each case? Was our defensive war in 1812 wrong? 

4. Are we now fairly efficient in providing for national defense? Are you 
and I conscious that "security" is one of the most important "goods" for 
which men strive ? ' 

5. Have you ever felt endangered from epidemics of: yellow fever; cholera; 
typhus; bubonic plague? Why? Are many Americans still endangered from: 
tuberculosis; measles; smallpox; influenza epidemics; cancer; industrial acci- 
dents ? Why ? 

In what ways are we striving to become more "efficient," first in preventing, 
and second in curing, ill health? Are there other peoples who seem to be 
more "efficient" in this work than are Americans? What are some of our 
"scandalous" individual shortages due to ignorance or indifference ? Some of 

234 



SOCIAL VALUES 235 



our collective shortages? What does it seem to you that the draft examina- 
tions revealed as to "public health"? 

What do you believe that the next twenty-five years will give us in the 
way of higher "health efficiency" ? 

6. What "personal" wealth do you possess? Which kinds of it do you 
use primarily for present "consumption," and which as means of producing 
new wealth? Separately consider: clothes, books, jewelry, invested "money," 
tools, land, etc. What kinds and amounts of personal wealth do you think 
you should have at age forty? 

Of what forms of "community wealth" do you have fairly free use or 
benefit ? Separately consider streets and roads ; public libraries ; public schools ; 
parks ; public fire-fighting apparatus ; battleships ; municipal courthouses. 

Of what forms of wealth do you have the use at small expense because so 
many people share in that use ? Separately consider : newspapers, theaters, 
large stores, railways, hotels, factories, which serve you or in which you 
could get employment if necessary. 

How do the "people" of America seem to compare (a) in total possessions, 
and (b) in distribution of wealth, with those of: China; Switzerland; Brazil; 
central Russia? How much of the difference is due to: natural resources; 
more scientific leadership; security from external enemies; internal order; 
presence of capital? Compare California and South Carolina as respects 
wealth, and explain some causes of the differences noted. 

In what ways are some people in America striving to promote greater 
social "wealth" or economic efficiency by: scientific education; more scientific 
agriculture ; improvements of banking ; government ownership of railroads, 
mines, etc. ; income taxation ; guaranty of bank deposits ; vocational education ; 
thrift education? 

7. In what ways have you ever suffered from crime or social disorder? In 
what ways are you now somewhat threatened by prevalence of : robbery ; 
personal violence; possible invalidation of your titles to property; libel or 
slander ? 

In what conspicuous respects does it appear to you that America suffers 
from, or is at a low state of efficiency as regards : protection of personal safety 
as respects life and security from harm to person; security of property; 
protection of reputation ? Separately consider the risks of : farmers ; wage- 
working women ; recent immigrants ; the very rich. 

What are the essential purposes of laws; courts; police powers; prisons? 
Show examples in which each seems now inefficient. 

What are certain areas of "social order," "righteousness," "fair dealing," 
etc., which laws and courts can hardly touch as yet? What are some examples 
of progress in recent years in improving the efficiency of domestic social 
order ? 

In what ways does the government of the United States "establish justice" 



236 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

and "insure domestic tranquillity"? The respective state governments? Mu- 
nicipal, county, and town governments? 

Are people made righteous generally by law and police, powers? Why? 

Describe the characteristics of an "efficient" society as respects righteous- 
ness. In what ways did Magna Charta, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights 
(amendments to Constitution), and John Marshall lay foundations of the 
"righteousness" that we to-day enjoy? 

8. What are some kinds of knowledge that you value chiefly because they 
are means to your conservation of health or procuring a living ? What are 
some other kinds that you value "for theii own sake" ? Illustrate from your 
knowledge of: astronomy; the world's famous men; the history of great occur- 
rences and peoples; geography; the fine arts. 

Do you approve of the use of public funds for research into: deep-sea life; 
the composition of the sun's outer atmospheres; ancient history of New 
Mexico; the geology of Alaska? Why? 

If you were suddenly given much wealth and leisure, what forms of knowl- 
edge (or experience) would you set yourself to acquire? Why these? To 
benefit others? To satisfy yourself? 

In what respects do you consider America relatively (a) efficient and 
(b) inefficient in: providing for the general diffusion of knowledge; de- 
veloping tastes and interests in knowledge new to the rising generation ; in 
promoting research for knowledge new to the world ? Compare us with certain 
other times and some other peoples in these respects. 

9. What are some of your keen esthetic sensibilities or interests ? Sepa- 
rately consider desires for: music; color; form; motion; appeals to imagina- 
tion. Also separately consider the concrete manifestations for which you most 
care in: songs; rhythmic instrumental music; dress; pictures; moving pic- 
tures ; furniture ; architecture ; dancing ; poetry ; high-grade or "artistic" fiction. 

In what respects do you consider (a) yourself, (b) your associates, or (c) 
the American people inferior, "low-brow," or inefficient in their esthetic ap- 
preciations, artistic sensibilities, or public support of "art"? 

Does it appear to you that art should be valued chiefly "for its own sake," 
or as a means to: wealth, health, social goodness (morality), religion, fel- 
lowship, and the like? In what respects can each be said to be a "social 
value" ? 

What contemporary movements or projects to render the American people 
"more efficient" in appreciation and support of art appeal to you as important? 
Contrast us with other peoples as respects "artistic efficiency," separately con- 
sidering : sculpture ; painting ; poetry ; vocal music ; moving-picture art ; applied 
art? 

ID. Of what "value" to individuals is a sincere and untroubled religious 
faith ? What peculiar needs of society are served by wholesomely and 
devoutly "religious" people? 



SOCIAL VALUES 237 



'Having in mind all kinds of religion, from primitive to the recently de- 
veloped, what are some of the essential characteristics of an "efficient" or 
valuable religion suited to needs of modern civilized life? Separately con- 
sider such factors as its relations to : development of science ; promotion of 
morality; toleration; the family; the state; other social groups; education; 
social progress. 

Review various efforts of well known religious systems to render themselves 
more acceptable and useful to their members, and more serviceable to society 
at large. 

11. Analyze the satisfactions you derive from various kinds of sociability, 
fellowship, and friendship. What seem to you to be some of the "defects" or 
"shortages" as respects sociability among: wives of farmers; young traveling 
workmen in cities; intellectually keen minds in small towns; white men living 
among primitive peoples? 

Analyze the probable contributions of these to wholesome fellowship : col- 
lege fraternities ; men's clubs ; young people's societies in churches ; high- 
school cliques ? What have probably been the "fellowship values" of : saloons ; 
village gossip ; coeducational schools ; travel ? 

What are some of the most obvious obstacles to sound "fellowship" in 
modern urban life; newly settled rural areas; small towns; rich churches; 
large colleges? 

12. What are some of the outstanding evidences of maternal love and 
solicitude for very young children ? How do these seem to change as children 
become adults and independent? Contrast these with paternal love and care. 

What have been some of your experiences with pride of parents in their 
children? With family pride? 

What are the "sacrifices" necessarily to be made by those who rear children 
in large cities? Contrast with sacrifices necessary to be made by small 
farmers. 

Does "race suicide" seem to involve a weakening of interest in progeny? 
Can keener interest in one or two children compensate parents for more 
diffused interest in a larger family? 

What have been some of the more important constructive efforts of the 
last century to provide "a better start in life" for children? Separately 
consider legislation providing for: school attendance; regulation of labor of 
minors; prevention of cruelty to children; public playgrounds; protection of 
"illegitimate" children; care of orphans. Also consider philanthropic or pri- 
vate initiative toward : reforming public care of orphans ; lessening corporal 
punishment in schools; reorganizing education. 

13. In terms of the fundamental social goods referred to above, what seem 
to you to have been the "values" that the following "case-groups" of men 
have excessively prized and sought, and those that they probably have under- 
valued and neglected : the New England Puritans ; the more prosperous busi- 



238 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ness men of our day; fashionable society of the court of Louis XIV: Atheni- 
ans of the Periclean period; fashionable women of to-day; the settlers of the 
states of the plains ; rapidly rising professional men in modern cities ; college- 
educated women; rural colored dwellers in the South; contemporary artists, 
writers, and musicians? 

14. Recall historical or contemporary examples of social groups that seem 
to you excessively to have sacrificed : religion ; wealth ; health ; righteousness ; 
security; beauty; knowledge; progeny; sociability. 

What is the probable social significance of the various forms of public 
interest now found respectively in: children's courts; provision of uniform 
divorce legislation; preservation of Australia as a "white man's" country; 
birth control; eugenics? 

ORIGINS OF SOCIAL VALUES^ 

Living organisms all strive toward ends that we conveniently embrace 
under such terms as "self-preservation," "self-realization," and "per- 
petuation of species." The growing plant seems to "value" right soil, 
moisture, and sunlight in order that it may grow and reproduce itself. 
Animals "value" food, security, freedom, mobility, sex expression, and 
their young in the same vigorous, even if unconscious, ways. A large 
proportion of the actual facts and immediate causes of such behavior are 
readily accessible and intelligible. 

Primitive human beings are conspicuously above and beyond the higher 
animals as respects most of their "valuations." It is easy to see that 
among the "things believed worth while" for which primitive men and 
women plan, work, sufifer, and even, if necessary, die, are food, shelter, 
property, mating, companionship, freedom, social approval, deities, safety, 
and offspring. Not all of these "values" seem to be held as of equal 
worth by different peoples. Some seem to classify as "means" rather than 
as "ends in themselves," according to the prevailing instincts or customs 
of the tribe. Usually the "self-preservation" and "group-preservation" 
to which these values contribute are, by the standards of civilized societies, 
self-centered. Societies of savage men commonly have as little moral 
concern with other societies as the people of this globe now have with 
the hypothetical inhabitants of Mars. To primitive man the lives of 
himself, his brother, his wife, and his child are very precious indeed. 
So also are the security of his clan, the sanctity of his deities, and, under 
some circumstances, the honor of his chief or master. Often he can well 

^Review Ross, Principles (Ch. 4 and 5, The Original, and the Derivative, Social 
Forces). 



SOCIAL VALUES 239 



meet the test, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his 
life for his friends." 

Values, like all other social facts, must be studied in their manifesta- 
tions through individuals. Men may attach value to things that are good 
for them and for their fellows — certain kinds of security, knowledge, and 
fellowship ; or to things that are only temporarily good — i.e., satisfying 
to them, but ultimately harmful both to them and their fellows — such as 
criminal success, and self-indulgence; or to things that seem immediately 
harmful to them, but that are ultimately good to them or their fellows — 
such as sacrifice of life, liberty, or wealth to good ends ; or even to things 
that are permanently harmful to the individual, but good for his fellows — 
perhaps crippling, or death in battle. 

When certain values are pursued by large numbers of persons over 
considerable periods of time ; and when their general realization seems 
markedly to increase the sum total of human well-being, then we may 
call these "social values." Where, on the other hand, values, even if 
generally pursued, seem to terminate largely in the satisfactions of the 
individual and do not generally spread to others or result in large cor- 
responding benefits, then these may be called "individual values." 

Man's desire for food, drink, air, and shelter are self-preservative, and 
until they are largely satisfied he can render little or no social service. 
Similarly, individual desires for sex experience, for domination, for per- 
sonal liberty, and for play need not, and perhaps usually are not, pre- 
dominantly social in their direct consequences, although obviously they too 
are basic preliminaries to larger and more diffusive social action. 

Individual values or "goods" of many kinds can be distinguished which 
deserve to be called social values only in somewhat less degree than those 
already enumerated. Many, perhaps all, of these have instinctive founda- 
tions; and many are powerfully affected by social customs or hy oppor- 
tunities opened up by social developments. Among them may be enumer- 
ated the values of : sensory gratifications inferior to those commonly called 
esthetic — these lower ones including appeals to gustatory, olfactory, 
tactual, and temperature senses ; satisfaction of instincts of sex, quite 
apart from interests in progeny; liberty of movement, worship, thought, 
expression, and work of kinds that may or may not harmonize with the 
needs of the social order; power, prestige, leadership, domination, work- 
manship, creation, invention, exploration. 

Human beings, like other organic creatures subject to the processes of 
evolution, gradually evolve or develop means of serving the valued pur- 
poses of their existence. These means include all devices, physiological 



240 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

or other, that enable them to preserve Hfe, to perpetuate their respective 
species, and to get various other "satisfactions" out of hving. Among 
these means must obviously be included not only the instincts, the defensive 
organs, and the "family-forming" tendencies of many animals, but also 
their various forms of social, group, or cooperative organizations. Here 
must also be included the various "group formations" and "social 
processes" discussed in previous chapters. They are all, in the last 
analysis, social means. 

Social means to what ends? Sociology can give no final answer to that 
question as yet. Perhaps it can not hope to find an adequate scientific 
answer at all. It may have to leave analysis of "ultimate values" to 
metaphysics and religion. 

But sociology can do much to answer the question provisionally in 
terms of the best appreciations now available. Men, by virtue of their 
"natures," desire various "goods" and work to attain them. Where many 
men, over many generations, desire and work for the same kind of good, 
we can call that a "social good" or value. If its pursuit and achieve- 
ment do not seem visibly to defeat other good pursuits, we can ap- 
prove the former as a "true value," subject always to the reservation 
that more knowledge may compel us to revalue or transvalue our first 
values. 

The "goods" or "values" of man and his societies are valued in large 
measure instinctively. Nature has given to man, as to all other organic 
beings, self-protecting dispositions. Within certain limits, he instinctively 
avoids danger ; demands justice ; acquires property ; seeks knowledge, 
beauty, and companionship ; and cherishes progeny and the favor of his 
deities. These instincts take definite shape and become powerful under the 
influence of social imitation (informal education) and direct education. 
What many individuals desire in common they learn to seek through col- 
lective action. Thus arise the social "values," the "good things" of life, 
for which men cooperatively strive, generation after generation. 

These "values" in civilized life are endlessly varied. Each may be 
pursued to excess — that is, to the point where harmful satiety or surfeit 
from the good itself results, or else such pursuit causes the pursuer to 
neglect other no less important "goods." Men need food and drink, shelter 
and rest ; they want deliverance from enemies and the presence of friendly 
companionship; they are curious after new knowledge, and within limits 
they crave beauty of color, form, sound, odor, taste, touch, image, and 
sentiment; whilst their desires for recognition, for domination, for the 
advancement of those whom they like, and for perpetuation of their 



SOCIAL VALUES 241 



species constitute the mainsprings of numberless social developments or 
even upheavals. 

It is the possession of these virtues — of "good" kinds and in "right" 
proportions — that makes life worth living — either for individual or for 
society. Hence in all societies social effort incessantly supplements indi- 
vidual effort in seeking to realize them. Many agencies already historically 
old have been evolved for their production or conservation — governments, 
churches, schools, parties, and faiths, the customs that underlie marriage, 
dress, friendly association, and tolerated competition ; and no less such 
social mechanisms as money, the alphabet, trade, and highways. Modern 
civilization strives to build superstructures of scientific social economy 
upon, or in place of, the old institutions and faiths. 

The aims of this social economy are often, first curative, next pre- 
ventive, finally constructive. Social groups thus early purpose to de- 
stroy or punish criminals and other disturbers of security ; now they seek 
to prevent potential from becoming actual criminals ; and later through 
eugenics and control of environment they may seek to produce human 
beings among whom criminal tendencies will not appear. To cure dis- 
ease is good, but not so good as it is to prevent it. But to banish the 
causes of disease, whether dangerous bacteria or susceptibilities of hu- 
man bodies, may be a higher achievement still. 

The social values of civilized societies can, as implied above, be 
comprised to a considerable extent under the vague categories "self- 
preservation" and "preservation of species." ^ But the social groups that 
civilized man has formed are often of gigantic dimensions — nations, em- 
pires, vast churches, the cooperating upholders of democracy and culture. 
Not only must he value the existence of these, but he must cherish the 
means that make them effective — on the one hand, the institutions, science, 
faith, and other social inheritances which have been built up, and on the 
other the lands, the freedom, and the good blood that must be conserved 
for the future "white man's continent" and other areas of life in which 
we aspire that we or our successors shall "carry on." 

Hence "values" for civilized men become diffused, complex. Meta- 
physicians devote themselves to speculation as to "ultimate values." Theo- 
logians sometimes hold that the most genuine values are to be realized 
beyond the grave, in communion with God and enjoyment of the beatified 
life. All the values ordinarily held are seen by seers among these men 
as means only to the realization of remoter ends. 

^ See Clay, Economics (Ch. 23, Wealth and Welfare); and Dewey and Tufts, 
Ethics CCh. 14 and 15, Happiness and Social Ends). 



242 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



The practical work of the world is at most times done, however, largely 
in pursuit of mundane ends. The large majority of men still find in 
health, friendship, knowledge, righteousness, devoutness, security, beauty, 
wealth, and children "ends good in themselves." But our increased social 
sensitiveness forces us to think of these not merely as "personal," but 
also as group or "social" goods. Personal health is held to be a blessing, 
but a healthy individual requires for his full satisfaction that others, 
first those near and dear to him, and then all others whom he has learned 
in any way to cherish, shall also be healthy. Security is a precious 
thing, but our neighbors, our country, our coreligionists throughout 
the world, the friends of democracy, the "white race," and finally all 
humanity must be secure before we can realize in full measure that 
"social good." 

Patriotic, philanthropic, and missionary impulses lie at the bottom of 
much of the social economy developed since man emerged from bar- 
barism. The true Christian can not consider his own salvation as a 
sufficient good, so long as other souls are in darkness and in danger of 
being lost. The humane man seeks to be fatherly comforter to thousands 
of unhappy children. The warrior is content to give his ease, his wealth, 
his health, and his Ufe for his people. 

KINDS OF SOCIAL VALUES ^ 

Contemporary social values are to be understood chiefly through in- 
ductive studies of the activities of the men, women, and children com- 
posing the social groups that are significant in our time and country. 
Those things for which many men and women work hard in order to 
acquire and conserve — these point toward the more inclusive and en- 
during social values. Those things that old and wise and good men 
and women tend strongly to approve suggest even more positively the 
values with which the social economist has most concern. 

Wisdom has, nevertheless, always recognized an elusive quality in 
human appreciations of worth. Our imaginations readily conjure up 
new worlds to conquer when ambitions seem to have acquired everything 
in the first. 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough 
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades 
Forever and forever as I move. 

* Refer to G. Wallas, The Great Society (Ch. 7, Pleasure-Pain and Happiness). 



SOCIAL VALUES 243' 



But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Else what 's a heaven for ? 

The fiend that man harries is love of the best. 

Man never is, but always to be, blest. 

Possibly we are so constituted that whereas our desires, even our 
educated desires, for security, health, and fellowship could be practically 
sated, our desires for knowledge, for righteousness, for wealth, and for 
association with divinity would still grow by what they feed upon. 

It is, indeed, probable that the ends or purposes felt to be final by some 
men are felt by other men to be but means to still larger ends. For 
many, liberty, the satisfaction of sexual hungers, or the conservation 
of health are final values in themselves. For others, the attainment 
of these only opens the doors to other achievement. Friendship, beauty, 
and present knowledge are to some the farthest seen goals of desire. 
To others these are but stepping stones to larger ends of service to 
humanity, communion with God, or the advancement of knowledge. 

The scientific evaluation of social purposes is only practicable, how- 
ever, when the social values defined are such that in civilized societies 
large amounts of individual and collective effort are expended toward 
their realization. We know well that for hundreds, if not thousands, 
of years, men have striven hard to conserve health and to recover lost 
health. Similarly, in promoting security and righteousness, in accumu- 
lating wealth and knowledge, in fostering beauty and religiousness, and 
in enriching life with fellowship and progeny, men, individually and 
collectively, have developed their own powers, evolved cooperative groups, 
devised numberless processes of action, and in other ways sought the 
objects of their desire. 

Provisionally, then, we can establish these nine categories of things 
of social worth or value — security, health, wealth, righteousness, knowl- 
edge, beauty, religion, sociability, progeny.* These are not necessarily 
final values, nor are they mutually exclusive in any complete sense. Per- 
haps they are not all properly of the same rank, and it is obvious 
that, within limits, each may be well a means to one or more of the 
others. 

Definitions of social values must be agreed upon by all those who 
would contribute to the more effective development of education as a 

* The well informed reader will readily recognize my indebtedness to Dr. A. W. 
Small for these categories. 



244 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

means. For that purpose the following provisional definitions and analyses 
are suggested : 

a. "Security" includes not only the safety of our personal lives, prop- 
erty, liberty, and reputations, but that of others dear to, or approved by, us. 
Furthermore, there should be included the security of all those agencies 
— our family, our city, our trade union, our church, our nation, and 
the rest — which have come to be valued as necessary means to the well- 
being of ourselves and those whom we cherish. All the other "goods" 
are obviously in greater or less degree means to security. 

b. "Health" had best be restricted here to its ordinary physical sig- 
nificance, including freedom from physical pain, from humiliating dis- 
figurement, and confining weakness. 

c. "Wealth" should be understood in its more comprehensive sense of 
including not merely capital or stored wealth, but also the consumable 
material goods that satisfy desires for food, shelter, movement, decora- 
tion, domination, and the like. 

d. "Righteousness" covers almost all that is commonly understood by 
"good" moral and civic behavior. 

e. "Knowledge" is here primarily conceived as a "value" or "end" 
in itself — of the kinds that satisfy native curiosity, scientific interests, 
cravings for news or gossip, and the like. Knowledge of very specific 
kinds is obviously also a means to health, the acquisition of wealth, the 
insurance of security, the promotion of righteousness, and the develop- 
ing of progeny. But to natural and educated man at his best it is one of 
the supreme "values" in itself. In greater or less degree, it is this also to 
all persons, as testified by general reading, gossip, the curiosities of child- 
hood, and the intellectual recreations of all people. 

/. "Beauty," like knowledge, may be a means to other ends, or a kind 
of final satisfaction in itself. The esthetic demands of human nature 
are varied — ranging from the relatively sensual gratifications of touch, 
warmth, taste, and odor, to the sensuous satisfactions due to harmonies 
of" form, color, and shade that appeal to the sense of sight, or to the 
harmonies of sound that appeal to the sense of hearing. Finally must 
be included a variety of esthetic responses that lie deeper in human psy- 
chology — those that are evoked by poetry, the drama, scientific concep- 
tions, and the like. 

g. "Religion" is a very unsatisfactory term to denote what mankind 
has very generally held to be one of the great values in life. The words 
piety, godliness, or devoutness would be better if it were not for some 
unfortunate connotations attached to each of them. "All men are at 



SOCIAL VALUES 245 



heart religious" — or, rather, they hold religion (in the more sociological 
sense) as a precious thing. Men certainly appreciate and strive to realize 
this social value no less than the others named above. 

h. "Fellowship" or "sociability" are also inadequate terms to embrace 
the various specific "social goods," ranging from love of companionship 
and conviviality through friendship to respect, social esteem, and honor 
which are all species of the generic human good of "association on its own 
account." The root most basic to the commonest words in the social 
sciences is socius, a companion. Love, apart from two of its specialized 
forms in mating and motherhood, largely denotes what is here called fel- 
lowship. 

i. "Progeny" here includes all the objectives of what is commonly 
understood by the clumsy word philoprogenitiveness, or the words pa- 
rental affection, p'arcnthood, etc. Here begin, obviously, the prime inter- 
ests in the conservation of the species. Perpetuation of species or stock 
is, of course, one of the major purposes of all organic life. 

Other social values could, obviously, be distinguished in societies. ° For 
ages men have striven for liberty as an apparent end worth while in 
itself. The efforts of adults to satisfy sexual desires motivate endless 
forms of individual and collective action. The search for truth is often 
held up as a splendid goal. All men in a measure, and some in very 
great degree, devote themselves to "service" as a collective good. There 
are those who would make "progress" an objective of almost final worth. 
Many Orientals hold "devotion to ancestors" as a social good equal to 
that which is here called religion. A "life of contemplation" has seemed 
of supreme value to some. "Power" over inanimate nature, but more 
evidently over other men, seems to some a kind of ultimate value. Others 
could readily be discerned among the numberless incentives that actuate 
men all about us. The reader will have no dif^culty in relating to the 
categories previously established all but two or three of these alleged 
social values. 

Primitive man doubtless thought of adequate sex expression as a final 
good in itself. But biology sees it as an inescapable means to the pres- 
ervation of species. The ideals and insight of sociology explain sex 
love, mating, conjugality, and parenthood as very largely significant means 
to such other values as fellowship, beauty, health, and especially progeny. 
Hence it is unnecessary to establish a special category for this very ancient 
source of human gratification and well-being. 

^ The speculative student will consult H. Miinsterberg, The Eternal Values, and 
P. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals. 



246 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Service, in the sense of unpaid philanthropic work for the benefit of 
others, is, obviously, a social process of realizing certain relatively ulti- 
mate "goods" as far as this world is concerned. These could not usually 
be realized through the ordinary instinctive or institutionalized cooperative 
processes. This purely altruistic service is frequently the gift made to 
society by the finest* spirits. Some men give it in abundance to religion ; 
others to the advancement of knowledge; others in promoting social 
security; and not a few toward assuring the reign of righteousness. 

The other values named are either obviously means to ends, or else 
are projections and artificializations of the more common values and 
confined to a few persons. 

Gradations in appreciations of social values are among the easily 
observed facts of human life. Some persons, dominated perhaps by 
disproportionate development of ancient self -preservative instincts, or else 
the victims of understimulation of right valuations, prize their own bodily 
security above all other things. For it they will sacrifice the safety of 
those dependent upon them, their liberty, their property, and the respect 
of their fellows. In war they are cowards and slackers. In time of dis- 
aster they are undependable. 

We are all acquainted with those who care little for beauty, and with 
others whose appetites for knowledge can hardly be increased beyond 
infantile proportions. Many value righteousness in others, but make little 
efifort to realize it in themselves. Not all men are normally religious, and 
some seem to have sufifered atrophy of the instincts of philoprogenitive- 
ness. Love of wealth or of convivial fellowship are so excessive in some 
as to be disastrous to their larger interests. 

However, collective valuations react heavily on individual valuations 
through the numerous processes of imitation and education that are always 
operative in society. Instinctive traits are only the original raw materials 
out of which various kinds of evaluations can be shaped. The history 
of Christianity gives many examples of men so educated by their associates 
and reading as to place a" high valuation on the negative states of poverty, 
loneliness, and even ill health for the sake of the higher religious values 
thereby presumably to be achieved. Every people whose social organiza- 
tion has been evoked and refined by the processes of conflict has learned 
to cultivate to some degree in nearly all males, and to an extraordinary 
degree in some females, the martial virtues, with all that these imply of 
physical courage, work, deprivation, and self-sacrifice. 

Naturally, too, all social groups develop their partisans of particular 
social values. At times it is fashionable to disparage the religious values 



SOCIAL VALUES 247 



and to exalt the esthetic. The splendors of the life reared on the pos- 
session of abundant wealth lures many men now, as did the glories of 
military success in other days. Satisfaction of the desires for knowledge 
may never develop widespread excesses, but here and there such pursuits 
may cause men harmfully to undervalue the satisfactions of wealth, re- 
ligion, and progeny. 

Perhaps it is important that different ages should dififerently evaluate 
the "values" of life. Certainly our ancestors attached higher and dif- 
ferent concrete values to certain things in religion than do we. That may 
be bad, or conceivably it may be well, for us. Certainly our day and 
our people are attaching higher values to "knowledge" than did our fore- 
bears. Naturally, we think well of ourselves for doing so ; but what will 
posterity say? 

But the more important changes are within the particular fields them- 
selves. It may be doubted whether men of to-day care less in the ag- 
gregate for the esthetic values in form, color, sound, and usage than did 
the corresponding peoples of Europe from 500 B.C. to 100 B.C. or from 
1300 A.D. to 1500 A.D. But certainly we care for different specific mani- 
festations of esthetic value. Men have always been religious, sociable, 
and lovers of material possessions, but perhaps never more so than to-day. 
Clearly, however, we shift our interests toward new objectives of a con- 
crete nature. Perhaps we must still depend upon the metaphysician to 
suggest to us whether our shiftings are to be counted as progress. We 
not only want, but we actually get, more wealth of certain kinds than 
our ancestors had ; but we create new needs, develop new desires. We 
win security from pirates, but invest our wealth in bonds, the values of 
which so fluctuate as to make us feel that we still build our homes on 
quicksands. We therefore gladly leave to the philosopher the question, 
"Does the sum total of human happiness, well-being, or other 'ultimate 
value' increase with civilization?" 

Conflicts of feeling and knowledge in valuations are the inevitable 
outcome of increasing experience and accumulation of science. Herein 
lie many of the strains and some of the tragedies of social control. 
The individual feels that a certain course of action is good — good 
as satisfying his desires, that is. Sometimes his judgment, but more 
often the judgment of others, is to the effect that it is not good — good, 
that is, for the individual in the long run, or for his fellows. 

Eating when he is hungry is a good to the savage — even when vague 
judgments tell him that he is consuming next winter's food supply. The 
badly trained youth finds it good to appropriate something valuable, 



248 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

when his more moral fellows know that his theft is injuring others. Idle- 
ness is a present satisfaction for men, purchased at the expense of later 
and, as experience commonly proves, deeper and more enduring satis- 
factions. 

Stoic and Epicurean are perpetually in competition in society. Stoic 
and Puritan think so much in terms of postponed satisfactions that they 
seem to their less far-sighted brethren to "take all the joy out of life." 
The "liberal" (as he Hkes now to call himself) or Epicurean is disposed 
to let the future take care of itself and to make the most of the present. 
"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," is the motto of the 
extremist here. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?" is the cry of the more provident ("forward- 
looking") one. 

The adjustment of the young to society is a perpetual battle for "de- 
ferred values." So is the adjustment, often, of those of inferior intelli- 
gence or imagination. The "socially minded" asks after the "remoter 
or more genuine values to society" of science, of this form of music, of 
that religious faith, or of some kind of small group independence, only 
to be greeted by half-bewildered assertions — "but it feels good — it is a 
kind of good in itself." 

But the history of human thought and social behavior irrefutably 
demonstrates the steady ascendancy in normal societies — as long as they 
are not degenerative — of conceptions of larger rationalised social values 
as against smaller felt values. That ascendancy is evidence of social 
progress, as far as that can now be defined. 

Conflicting values give rise to a large proportion of the problems of 
contemporary collective life. We could realize very much indeed of any 
particular value, at least for the time being, if we worked for that alone. 
Societies, like individuals, can, at least temporarily, accumulate much wealth 
or knowledge if we are willing to yield the parallel quests for health and 
beauty. National wealth from slaves or the numerous progeny of irrespon- 
sible, even though affectionate, parents, may be purchased at excessive 
cost in other social values. "They who are unwilling voluntarily to fight 
for the truth may presently be forced to fight for a lie." 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Abel, M. H. Successful Family Life on the Moderate Income (Ch. 

19, The Satisfactions of Life). 
Carver, T. N. Essays in Social Justice (Ch. 14, The Cure for Poverty). 



SOCIAL VALUES 249 



CoNKLiN, E. G. Heredity and Enznronment (Ch. 5, Control of He- 
redity). 

GiDDiNGS, F. Principles. (Ch. 3, Bk. IV, Social Law and Cause, esp. 
Sect. I (3).) 

Muller-Lyer, F. The History of Social Development (Book VI, Cul- 
ture and Happiness). 

MiJNSTERBERG, HuGO. The Eternal Values (Ch. 10, The Values of 
Beauty). 

Nietzsche, F. A Genealogy of Morals (First Essay, "Good and Evil"; 
Second Essay, "Bad Conscience"). 

Phillips, L. M. Art and Environment (Ch. 4, What Art Meant to the 
Greeks). 

Powers, H. H. The Things Men Fight For (Ch. i. The Tangible Things; 
Ch. 2, The Intangible Things). 

Purinton, E. E. Efficient Living (Ch. i,What is Efficiency?). 

Ross, E. A. The Foundations of Sociology (Ch. 10, The Causes of Race 
Superiority). 

Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 31, Interests). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 20, Life Policies — Virtue vs. Success). 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 

MANY kinds and classes of social values can be described by any- 
careful observer of the behavior and preferences of himself and his 
neighbors. Within any convenient class of values — as, for example, 
wealth, or beauty, or fellowship — it is readily practicable to describe an 
indefinite number of kinds, ranging from those that, under present condi- 
tions, are temporary and degrading, to those that are exalting and en- 
nobling when pursued consistently for a long time. 

As respects one or the other type of the real "goods" of life, a given 
individual may be "starved"; or he may -possess it in right measure; or 
he may be surfeited and destroyed by excess. Even the collective efforts 
of large groups, including nations, may be so addressed to the excessive 
pursuit of security, wealth, religion, or progeny that the other goods of 
life are disastrously sacrificed. 

Obviously, a fundamental problem for every individual, as well as 
for every social group, is to discover "happy balances" or "optimum 
resultants" in the pursuit of values. This problem is the basic one in 
personal and social ethics. "If a man gain the whole world and lose 
his own soul" — expresses a query that applies along the entire range of 
human pursuits. 

Sociology has as yet developed neither final classifications nor com- 
parative evaluations of the "social values" or "goods." This is unfor- 
tunate for the educational sociologist, since the formulation of scientific 
objectives for education depends heavily upon well defined standards of 
social values. But time and effort will give us more knowledge — especially 
in view of the rapid progress now being made by sociology and its sub- 
science, social psychology. In the meantime, provisional studies can serve 
to translate or extend the experience that we all in large measure possess. 

A. SECURITY 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

The fortunate children of the modern civilized and orderly state have 
their security so insured by existing social mechanisms that it is hard 
for them fully to appreciate the fact that insecurity rather than security 

250 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 251 

has been the prevaiHng atmosphere in which our race has been nurtured. 
Nations have often been cherished by their citizens because of their great 
usefuhiess toward insuring security. Until the coming of the German 
airships in 191 7, the villages of England had felt only remotely threat- 
ened by invasions of Armada or Napoleonic navy. But dwellers in the 
Balkans, in large parts of central Asia, and in Central America have long 
known much of invasion, civil war, and rapine. Much of the security that 
Americans enjoy they take for granted, very much as they take for 
granted the air they breathe. Only reflection can enable us to evaluate 
our own conditions here. For example : 

1. Recall the conditions of insecurity surrounding Americans : of 1650 in 
the Connecticut Valley; of 1790 in Kentucky; of 1812 in Michigan; of 1863 in 
Kansas. 

2. Contrast the conditions of security in Belgium in 1913 and in 1916. In 
what respects, if any, could the Belgian nation itself be held responsible for 
the changes ? 

3. "The frame of mind [as to security] in which we [the people of 
western Europe] lived was shattered at the bombardment of Rheims Cathe- 
dral. That act was the symbol which compelled us to the agony of realizing 
that there was nothing but brute force between us and destruction. ... To 
wipe out what was a mental basis behind the chances of the world left nothing 
unassailable. All was at stake ; the wish for a tranquil clinging to old feelings, 
old family possessions, and history; the aim at continuous growth of institu- 
tions; the view of action as building of a fabric of thought and society for 
the future. The denial of any common basis of right 6r humanity crushes 
the mind, as the devil and his agents know." 

Did the feelings of insecurity generated by the Great War reach to America ? 
In what shape? 

4. Describe what seem to you the beliefs of competent students of social 
science as to possible disturbances of American security (a) now, (&) during 
the next ten years, or (c) from ten to one hundred years hence, due to: 
pirates ; conquering Germans ; possible Mexican invaders ; Japan ; a consoli- 
dated Oriental people; Great Britain; a united South America; civil wars 
originating in conflicts between labor and capital; civil war for the disso- 
lution of the union along some geographic lines; evolution of predatory 
hordes in time of economic distress. 

5. What are now the most depended upon means of assuring the social value 
of security against external enemies in America ? Separately consider : militia, 
army, navy, forts, stored weapons, potential military powers, internal good 
will, law-respecting character of. people, treaties, good will of other peoples, 
absence of dangerous causes of dispute, etc. 

What are threatening dangers external to us — and how threatening do they 
seem to be? 



252 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

What are possible sources of danger in our own weakness? 
What is specifically meant by "preparedness" ? 

DESIRES FOR SECURITY ^ 

Security — of life, property, liberty, and reputation — is in some ways 
analogous to equilibrium in the physical world. Until it is achieved, man 
is apprehensive and discontented. Though the realization of security 
often becomes in fact a means to the increase of wealth, acquisition of 
knowledge, and fuller development of fellowship, nevertheless, by com- 
mon testimony of human experience, it is primarily regarded as a "good 
in itself," as one of the final tangible values of life. 

But it is not only personal security that is sought for. Men often en- 
danger or completely yield up their own security for that of children, 
companions, church, or nation, or even for the "unborn generations." 
Furthermore, not all men value equally the different goods that may be 
made secure. Some value security of life less than liberty of movement, 
worship, or thought. Under some conditions, security of property becomes 
less precious than security of reputation. 

The mechanisms of defense have evolved among all organic species 
in substantially equal measure with the mechanisms of attack from enemies. 
In the fundamental sense, plant and animal life strive blindly or con- 
sciously for security no less than human life. Elaborate means of de- 
fense — walls for exclusion, speed for escape, disguises for hiding, weapons 
for stabbing and poisoning — are evolved. Man goes much farther. He, 
too, elaborates weapons against his enemies, and on occasion, flies, con- 
ceals, and immures himself. He does these things on vast cooperative 
scales. He develops protective taboos, customs, and conventions. He 
devises and documents laws and constitutions. Courts, prisons, and 
schools become part of his machinery for inducing or compelling others 
to leave him alone. The old jest that an Irishman "would have peace 
even if he had to fight for it" expresses the intentions of all mankind. 

Not all conflict, obviously, derives from desires for security. Offensive 

war is often predatory or vindictive, springing from a desire for gain, or 

for retribution for past ofifenses real or imagined. Once on the war-path, 

the aggressive social group, whether clan or nation, seldom knows where 

to stop. Its members easily imagine that there can be no security until the 

foe is extirpated. The craving for security is easily merged with, per- 

^ Review : Bagehot, Physics and Politics (Ch. 3 and 4, Nation-Making) ; Tufts, 
Our Democracy (Ch. 6, The State as a Source of Order) ; and Holmes, Trend of 
the Race (Ch. 9, The Selective Influence of War). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 253 

haps transformed into, the appetite for power and for possessions. Even 
the millionaire thinks of his possessions as insecure unless he acquire 
other millions. 

Local and domestic security of several kinds are among the precious 
achievements made by civilized society in the stronger nations virithin 
recent years. Apart from disturbed border zones during war-times, the 
dwellers in various parts of the United States, France, Argentina, and 
New Zealand have for several decades been substantially secure in their 
lives, their property, their liberty, and their reputations. To many 
of us freedom from imminent danger has become so commonplace that 
we have probably ceased to have any adequate appreciation of its bless- 
ings. We take them as we take the air about us — unthinkingly, until some 
catastrophe brings us to a sharp realization of how other peoples, even 
yet, must long for and strive for security as a thing of almost immeasur- 
able value. 

But such security is purchased and conserved only at the price of sacri- 
fice, devotion, and much insight. Boundaries, titles, navies, courts, and 
prisons are among the more tangible means^efifective or not as they 
may be in individual instances. Back of these are treaties, constitu- 
tions, laws, customs, and routine practices. Deeper still than these are 
basic appreciations, ideals, and understandings which require long and 
patient building and which may derive, among such different peoples 
as Nordic types and Mediterranean, Oriental and Occidental, black and 
white, from somewhat dissimilar psychological foundations. 

Security in excess may be an evil no less than is hurtful insecurity. 
Water long at rest stagnates. Man, individually and collectively, un- 
doubtedly degenerates if conditions of life are made "too secure." In 
practice, however, the dynamic peoples of progressive Western civiliza- 
tion, having achieved one type or grade of security, become solicitous and 
restive under new ambitions and for new possessions. The sensitive and 
highly educated woman of modern society, absolutely shielded against 
violent attack on her person or her property, is, nevertheless, probably 
no less tortured by apprehensiveness than was the woman of the primitive 
forest horde. She fears to lose her hold on the affections of others, 
on highly valued rank or prestige, and on the other things which, trivial 
from some points of view, may nevertheless seem large as mountains to 
her sensitive imagination. 

But "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" no less to sociologist and 
educator than fo politician and statesman. All contemporary social ten- 
dencies indicate that each and every variety of worth-while security is 



254 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

to be insured only by increasing prevision, prearrangement, preparedness. 
Prevention of the things that breed insecurity, like prevention in medicine 
of the things that cause disease, becomes one of the great functions of 
social economy. To this end are increasingly to be enlisted various forms 
of cooperation and individuation, social control and socialization, oligarchy 
and democracy. 

B. RIGHTEOUSNESS, MORALITY, AND JUSTICE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Social harmony or order is a necessary condition for the realization of 
other social goods — but within limits it constitutes a good in itself also. 
The family, school, and neighborhood experiences of all of us are con- 
vincing as to the needs of order if work is to be done, good will conserved, 
or happiness insured. 

1. In what respects have you found your associates, during recent years, to 
be insufificiently law-abiding, moral, and devoted to fair play? Among what 
kinds of people have you witnessed most lawlessness, immorality, and un- 
fairness? 

2. What social disruptive and evil consequences have you seen following 
untruth, fraud, theft, personal violence, unchastity, bribery, and failures of 
justice in courts? Why, in time of national danger, do men so bitterly resent 
treason or other forms of disloyalty? 

3. Cite from the New Testament passages indicating the great values there 
attached to various forms of justice and fair dealing. 

4. How do you interpret some of the aspirations comprehended within 
the phrase "social justice" as currently used by economists, social reformers, 
and humanitarians ? 

5. In what specific respects does it seem to you that Am.erican social ma- 
chinery — courts, police powers, laws, civic education — for the conservation of 
social order is still seriously inadequate? In what respects perhaps danger- 
ously defective ? 

6. How do you interpret events of the last twenty-five years, looking to 
the extension of the "machinery of justice" — laws, courts, arbitration, police 
powers — to the regulation of international discords and conflicts? 

SOCIAL ORDER ^ 

Instincts for justice manifest themselves wherever social groups are 

formed. Very small children learn bitterly to resent unfair deprivations, 

" See Ross, Social Control (Ch. 7, The Need of Social Control) ; and T. Roosevelt, 
American Ideals and Other Essays. 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 255 

"partial" treatment by superiors, and injustices from their play fellows. 
Untruthfulness, deceit, and fraud will corrupt all kinds of cooperative 
relationships, from those of husband and wife to those between corpora- 
tion employers and unionized employees. Men who believe themselves 
to have been cheated or imposed upon remain long bitter and vindictive. 
No political society can be sound at core that has not evolved fairly effi- 
cient machinery for the administration of justice. It is still the shame of 
democratic America that her courts are relatively archaic and socially 
inefficient, especially in cities, a condition that is ofifset in some degree 
by the fundamental dispositions of most Americans to play fair, and to 
uphold social righteousness quite apart from police powers and laws. 

Deep-seated desires for the "square deal" are everywhere complicated, 
and in a measure corrupted, by self-interest, by indolence, and by lack of 
sympathic imagination. Naturally, we resent injustice toward us from 
others far more than we resent injustice toward others by ourselves. 
Hence the enormous difficulties of insuring justice between parties remote 
from each other. Hence the prevalence of the "long-range" sins of adul- 
teration, graft, misrepresentation, and defamation in social relations where 
fellowship is absent, and oppositions between races, classes, or sump- 
tuary standards exist. 

Social righteousness is, obviously, a means to the realization of other 
goods — in fact, it is a necessary means to the realization of all other 
social values on large scales involving much cooperation. Nevertheless, 
in all societies the wise and far-sighted tend greatly to value righteous- 
ness as a kind of final good in itself. One of cherished aspirations of 
all fine religions is that righteousness shall prevail among men. With- 
out it, there can be no complete security against outside enemies, and 
but little wealth. Where the law is flouted men live and die miserably. 

Keep ye the Law — be swift in all obedience — • 

Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. 

Make ye sure to each his own 

That he reap where he hath sown; 
By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord ! 

(Kipling, Song of the English) 

The standards of justice in an evolving society must inevitably change. 
Hence the numberless conflicts between old traditional standards, and 
new formative ones, in America, as wealth and knowledge have grown 
and social groups become more complex. Old offenses against social 
righteousness are still repeated in modern societies, probably in diminish- 



256 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ing numbers ; but new ones become easily possible. Furthermore, so- 
cieties once patiently endured causes of social disorder which, like the 
vermin sadly accepted by primitive peoples, more sensitive and efficient 
societies will not tolerate. We are becoming familiar with demands for 
"social justice," the concrete objectives of which may yet be very ill defined 
indeed, but the provocative sources of which are certain widespread per- 
ceptions of social ill-being for which, it is surmised, human agencies are 
somewhere and somehow responsible. 

The will to justice, founded on certain social instincts, is doubtless 
capable of being extended, deepened, and given specific direction by edu- 
cation.^ But the best methods of such education still seem psychologically 
obscure. In the unorganized education that generally takes place 
in all social groups, it is obvious that qualities rich in feeling or emotional 
accompaniment are much utilized. It seems probable that, as schools make 
themselves more responsible for the development or training of specific 
appreciations, ideals, and understandings of social righteousness, they 
will come to use as means literature and the other fine arts, as well as 
directed participations in unfamiliar social situations, to an extent at 
present unguessed. 

C. PHYSICAL WELL-BEING 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Sickness, disease, and death have usually been regarded by each on^ 
of us and our associates as ills of a very poignant sort. Primitive men 
do not so much plan and work for health and longevity, as they strive to 
escape from actual or threatened sickness, or perceived dangers to life. 
But with advances of acknowledge and powers of collective action, more 
science and effort are directed toward conservation of physical well- 
being and elimination of causes making for early death. Modern medi- 
cine, sanitation, quarantine, dietetics, and various other special branches 
of science and social economy all contribute to the realization, on wider 
scales, of the social values of health. In the meantime, nearly all of the 
conditions of civilized life — dress, work, nervous strain, distribution 
of bacteria, postponement of marriage — seem to operate against conser- 
vation of "natural health." 

I. What forms of ill health have you had experience with which were due 
to easy distribution of bacteria under modern living conditions ? Give ex- 
amples of successful modern sanitation in dealing with certain communicable 
diseases. 

^ See Ross, Social Control (Ch. 4, The Role of the Sense of Justice). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 257 

2. In what ways has it seemed to you that the contemporary pursuits of 
wealth make for ill health ? Do pursuits of knowledge, beauty, fellowship, 
or religion seem similarly to interfere with physical well-being? 

3. What are some of your beliefs (possibly ill founded) as to the bearings 
of these occupational pursuits on health (including accident) : textile manu- 
facture; coal-mining; railroading; school-teaching; home-making; small 
farming? What are some of the diseases most "dangerous" to prosperous 
urban business and professional men? 

4. What seems to you the social importance of these from the standpoint 
of health values : quarantine at ports ; free clinics ; endowed medical research ; 
instruction in hygiene in all schools ; compulsory vaccination ; Christian Sci- 
ence doctrines ; licensing of practitioners of medicine ; physical training ? 

5. Why has nearly all systematic physical training of which we have record 
been directed toward developing proficiency in the vocations of war and 
hunting? Does it seem practicable to develop systematic physical training 
for those modern vocations which seem to impose severe strains upon pro- 
longed health? 

HEALTH AS A CONSCIOUS VALUE* 

Physical well-being, instinctively or naturally sought by all organic 
creatures, becomes, with man, a purposive quest. Records of observations 
of primitive human societies abound in examples of the magic cures and 
preventions evolved to expel sickness and forestall accident. Savages 
tend commonly to ascribe disease to the ill will of spirits or of other 
human beings able to exert magic of some sort. Medicine-men are 
evolved to combat evil influences of spirits and in other ways to heal 
the sick. Disease and death are generally regarded as among' the 
major tragedies that require religious or philosophical explanation and 
justification. 

The combination of primitive man's intentions to cure disease or con- 
serve health, with his meager and confused knowledge, produced what 
seem to us now endless grotesque healing and preventive beliefs and 
practices. All early medicine was, very naturally, closely coupled up 
with magic and rehgious rites. In quest of healing agents, and especially 
"principles," it was much affected by simple processes of reasoning by 
analogy, some of the results of which still cling like vestigial organs to 
laymen's beliefs. 

■* See H. Spencer, Education (Ch. 4, Physical Education) ; C B. Davenport, Hered- 
ity in Relation to Eugenics (Ch. 8, Eugenics and Euthenics) ; F. M. Alexander, 
Man's Supreme Inheritance (Part II, Conscious Guidance and Control of Physical 
Well-Being) . 



258 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Modern medical practice has become scientific to a degree hardly yet 
attained in any other department of human effort. It has been especially 
successful in arresting the progress of several communicable diseases that 
were once disastrous. Every informed person knows that cholera, typhus, 
bubonic plague, and yellow fever need no longer be feared, except among 
the "slum" nations. The way lies open to the fairly complete suppression 
of malaria, typhoid, smallpox, venereal diseases, and possibly tubercu- 
losis and puerperal fever. 

From other sources is accumulating knowledge of the means of pre- 
venting diseases due to ill balanced dietaries, psychic disturbances, and 
the uncompensated strains of specialized work. Beliefs in old or new 
magic in medicine probably play a steadily diminishing role as general 
education improves. Among civilized peoples longevity is markedly increas- 
ing. If morbidity is not proportionately decreasing, the explanation is 
doubtless to be found in the greater strains imposed by modern work and 
living conditions — some of which can doubtless be corrected by increased 
vigilance and more accurate knowledge. 



D. ECONOMIC WELL-BEING 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Man must strive for the means of subsistence every day and all his 
life long. If he would rear children he must have ready for them, all 
the time, food and shelter. The material goods of food, apparel, housing, 
and diversion, as well as the tools necessary for their production, we 
can conveniently call wealth. Such wealth may be consumed — game, 
for example — almost as soon as acquired ; or it may be stored against 
future need — as in the case of seed corn and capital placed in a bank; 
or it may be used more or less continuously — as in the case of buildings, 
tools, and clothes. 

Pursuit of the means of subsistence, encountering the limited fruit- 
fulness of the earth, man's natural dislike of more than moderate labor, 
and his imperfectly developed knowledge of ways and means, results in 
the fixing of "standards of living" or of economic well-being, characteristic 
of any given people, or stage in its advancement. We all want more of 
the goods of life, but we will not, or can not, pay the price. As it is, our 
striving for "wealth" often seems to be the most "determining" influence 
in our lives. 

I. What is meant by "standard of living"? Try to describe essential mini- 
mum factors in your own standard of living as respects: foods; shelters; 
c'-cthing; working tools; diversions; fellowship? 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 259 

2. Describe essential differences between your "standard of living" and 
that of : 

a. Poor, native-born American tenant farmers. 
h. Chinese coolie laborers. 

c. North American Indians, before contact with whites. 

d. "Delicately reared" men and women of European "upper classes." 

e. Americans reare'd in families of more than ten thousand dollars a year 
income. 

/. Recent immigrants from southern Italy. 

3. What are the chief material contributions to economic well-being (of 
themselves, or, by exchange, of others) made by the present occupants of: 
Kansas; the Sahara Desert; central England; Patagonia; Ceylon; Massa- 
chusetts? . 

Why is Greenland sparsely settled? How explain the dense population of 
Massachusetts? Of India? Of large American cities? 

4. Describe some of the ways in which science and invention have made 
"higher standards of living" possible, separately considering: steel; coal; use 
of steam power ; agricultural machinery ; pipe conveyance of water ; the cotton 
plant; cold storage. 

5. What parts are played in maintaining acceptable standards of living by : 
storage of goods — seed, food; additions to chemical knowledge; exchange of 
products with money as medium; capital that may be borrowed; applied 
science ? 

6. In what forms and degrees, under conditions as known to you, are 
the interests mutually helpful or antagonistic, of: producer and (by exchange) 
consumer ; of buyer and seller ; of employer and employees ; of borrower and 
lender; of capital and labor; of government and taxpayer; of producers and 
non-producers (within family group) ? 

7. What is the law of "supply and demand" ? Illustrate its application in 
determining : prices of bread, diamonds, steamer rates, teachers' board ; sala- 
ries or fees of teachers, dentists, railway managers, unskilled job labor; 
building of automobiles, cold-storage plants, houses for rent, book stores, 
theaters ; the settlement of Minnesota, central Brazil, Arizona ; prices of land, 
of capital loaned on "safe" security, of capital loaned on uncertain security; 
profits of "enterprisers" or of speculative "developers" of natural resources. 

8. Analyze some of the factors that determine the "productivity" of the 
labor of one man of average native abilities under these conditions : he is 
a Robinson Crusoe alone on a tropical island; he is one of millions in an 
"overcrowded" territory; there is no capital to furnish him tools or machines; 
he has never been trained to work. 

Disentangle the factors making for the unproductivity of: 
a. A trained opera singer forced to live in Greenland. 
h. A gifted novelist able to write only in Finnish. 



26o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

c. A potential Carnegie in Afghanistan. 

d. A very able physician among the negroes of central Africa. 

e. A technically equipped mining engineer in Labrador. 
/. A highly trained teacher in a southern rural area. 

9. Discuss possible contributions of specific varieties of education to pro- 
motion of economic well-being through : 

a. Promoting simple, sound, and sane standards of living, as against harmful 
or wasteful ones. 

b. Training individuals to high productivity with least expenditure of time, 
energy, health, etc. 

c. Developing right civic attitudes toward trade, investment, economic lead- 
ership. 

d. Promoting optimum specialization (territorial and personal) of produc- 
tive effort by guidance, research, etc. 

10. What is the "Malthusian law"? Is it now operative? Did its effects 
contribute to bring on the Great War ? Trace some of its specific relationships 
to the world's supplies of: coal; wheat; meats; cotton cloth; fruit products; 
chemical products. 

11. Analyze various respects in which the state, through agencies of gov- 
ernment, plays a part in promoting economic production (including conserva- 
tion) and utilization, especially through : 

a. Provision of essential facilities (roads, streets, lighthouses, canals, 
docks). 

b. Promotion of scientific investigation (agriculture, mines, storage, etc.). 

c. Inspection in interests of fair dealing (meats, grains, medicines, weights, 
measures, ships, etc.). 

d. Oversight of investments, business papers, etc. (note Federal Reserve 
Banks). 

e. Issuance of currency, coinage. 

/. Regulation of rates or charges by public-utility corporations. 

12. What are some current proposals for extension of state action in 
economic affairs ? Specify under : 

a. Controls of transportation. 

b. Fixing of market i^ates. 

c. Government as capital lender. 

d. "Pure fabric" supervision. 

e. "Guaranty" of bank deposits. 

/. "Valorization and sale" — coffee, alcohol. 
g. Public housing. 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 261 



WEALTH AS A SOCIAL GOOD '^ 

Material possessions — weapons, cleared paths, shelters, clothing, tools, 
stored food, domesticated animals, tillable lands, objects of art, and the 
like — are the indispensable means of human existence and well-being be- 
yond the most primitive stages of social evolution. Some of these pos- 
sessions are rapidly consumed ; whilst others — like cleared lands, solidly 
built houses, fruit trees, domesticated animals, discovered and developed 
mines, navigable vessels, and domesticated food grains — represent wealth 
that can often be used through several generations. 

Among primitive societies conflicts for the possession of wealth or 
sources of wealth — hunting and iishing grounds, nut-bearing forests, 
accumulated seed, and treasures — is incessant. In highly evolved societies 
it takes the more comprehensive form of competitions and wars for min- 
ing, colonization, and trading areas. The extent to which a given people 
can and will develop and store wealth is obviously conditioned by the 
degree of security available. An agricultural scientist has shown that men 
have hitherto given far less attention to the selective breeding of nut- 
bearing trees as a source of human food than to grains, for the reason 
that the conditions of conflict have until recently discouraged prolonged 
dependence upon slow-growing trees, except for the luxuries of life. 

Fundamentally, all kinds of wealth are, or can be made, the means to 
the production of more wealth. A weapon or tool in the hands of its 
owner can be used repeatedly to produce the security or other w-ealth that 
he values. But the owner can hire his weapon or tool to another man 
and thus receive goods without exertion by himself. The owner of a 
house, area of cleared land, path, or boat can procure rent for the use of 
his wealth by others. In all developed societies property comes to be 
valued not merely for the immediate satisfaction or security against fu- 
ture needs it gives the possessor, but also for its service as capital or invest- 
ment — that is, as a means of producing new wealth, whether used di- 
rectly by the owner, or by another borrowing it from him. That the 
functions of capital in society are 9nly imperfectly understood by citizens 
is evident from the endless debates that prevail between political parties 
and in legislative assemblages. The presence of large quantities of stored 
wealth tempts the cupidity of propertyless men now hardly less than in 
primitive societies. 

* Review Kelsey, Physical Basis_ (Qi. 3, The Control of Nature). 



262 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Community wealth tends steadily to increase as societies become more 
complex, and especially in their political aspects." The state, repre- 
sented by nation, province, or municipality, usually now owns such various 
forms of wealth as highways and streets, fighting ships and other expensive 
weapons of war, parks, water-supply systems, lighthouses, schools, and 
sometimes railways, canals, docks, and warehouses. 

Probably the entire modern world moves steadily toward increase in 
community wealth. Certain political parties desire very extensive, per- 
haps very abrupt, socialisation of existing larger means of production — 
including lands, railways, mines, and more costly factory tools. Com- 
munity ownership of existing capital can easily be secured, but community 
use of capital as means of producing new wealth seems thus far to have 
proved successful only in fields where operations are highly standardized 
and factors of chance relatively small. 

Sociologically considered, wealth is only to a moderate extent a good 
in itself. It is primarily a means to the other goods of security, righteous- 
ness, knowledge, progeny, and the rest. But so long have men striven 
for wealth for immediate utilization or for possession that its satisfac- 
tion of a variety of desires may seem to most persons a very real "good" 
in itself. The instincts of possession are found in all, even quite young, 
children; and these are very easily developed or trained into ideals and 
insistent aspirations for large and varied possessions. Especially under 
the spur of rivalry are these capable of expanding into ambitions for power 
and aggrandizement. The disease of miserliness is one of the pathological 
manifestations of this ambition. Like all other normal appetites, — includ- 
ing even those for beauty and religious experience, — the desire for wealth 
or possessions can profitably be gratified up to some certain point, after 
which its further gratification may easily produce in the individual or 
for society more bad than good results. 

Productivity rather than possessions is the final measure of economic 
well-beings and capital wealth derives its value largely because of its power 
of aiding productivity. The well-being of men requires that they produce 
food, shelter, defense, transportation, diversion, and other means of 
utilization. Production may be for • immediate or deferred consump- 
tion, for occasional or persistent utilization. The final measure of the 
values of wealth is found in the character and extent of its ministry to 
needs of utilization. 

The unwise pursuit of material "goods," as well as contests for pos- 

* See F. H. Streightoff, The Standard of Living Among the Industrial People of 
America; and H. Clay, Economics (Ch. 12, The Circulation of Wealth). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 263 

session of the raw sources of wealth, obviously give rise to many of the 
threatening social dangers of our time — much as did the mutually an- 
tagonistic pursuits of "religious goods" in other ages. In no other de- 
partment of social activity is it now more necessary to promote sanity 
of demand, the spirit of cooperation, and social control toward righteous- 
ness on vast scales commensurate with the magnitude of modern eco- 
nomic interdependencies — many of which reach round the world. 

E. KNOWLEDGE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. In what directions were the curiosities of your earlier years directed? 
Did you care to "know" about stars, growth of plants, earthquakes, electricity ? 
What were some of your characteristic curiosities in adolescence — in natural 
phenomena, the social affairs of others, romance, art, history? Does it seem 
true to you that under present conditions children largely lose their natural 
curiosities? "Gossip is the first art of neighborliness" — what is the instinctive 
basis of gossip ? Before the development of means of diffusing knowledge 
by printed matter, "men were chiefly governed by rumor." Explain that from 
experience. 

2. In what school studies did you acquire "knowledge" that was not, ap- 
parently, designed to be of any "practical" value to you in preservation of 
health, acquiring wealth, or discharging your social responsibilities? Sepa- 
rately consider : geography, literature, history, natural science, foreign lan- 
guages, mathematics. Of the various kinds of knowledge thus acquired, which 
were of the greatest interest at the time? Which have most continued to 
be of interest? 

3. Describe certain forms of research now being prosecuted which, as far 
as you can see, will have no practical application to economic, or other so-called 
"useful ends." Does it appear to you that men best qualified for research 
are solicitous as to the useful applications of their discoveries? 

4. Does it seem to you that much of the world's "new" knowledge is "secret," 
or can be kept so for any considerable length of time? Why? Describe the 
means now employed for the diffusion of knowledge — journals, books, meet- 
ings of societies, education. 

KNOWLEDGE AS A VALUE 

Knowledge is often desired by primitive men as "an end in itself" — 

that is, for the satisfaction of lively curiosities.'^ But no less often it 

'See J. H. Robinson, The Mind in the Making (Ch. 5, How Creative Thought 
Transforms the World). 



264 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

is desired as a means to some other valued end — the conquest of an 
enemy, the placating of a deity, the acquisition of material goods, or the 
conservation of progeny. There are some forms of knowledge that di- 
rectly minister to both ends; and, viewing the activities of social groups 
over the centuries, it may be doubted whether any form or amount of 
knowledge does not sooner or later indirectly minister to other desired 
ends than the gratification of the pure desire "to know." 

Distinctions between "pure" and "applied" knowledge are nearly always 
made by men — consciously or unconsciously; and these distinctions prob- 
ably themselves serve useful purposes.^ The knowledge exchanged in 
gossip, the knowledge that, far back in remote antiquity, came to the 
fireside group from traveler, wandering tale-bearer, or man of magic — 
no less than much of that conveyed by modern newspaper, magazine, 
novel, Pullman-car gossip, or moving picture — was rarely consciously 
intended to serve useful ends. On the other hand, practical men, con- 
fronted with the necessities of exploration, construction, war strategy, 
or other work, have usually sought, unless they have been the victims 
of maleducation, such available knowledge as would serve toward the 
attainment of their ends. In many fields, especially of nature, knowledge 
seems easily to be increased in a geometrical ratio, once needed "keys" have 
been discovered. Hence the "useful applications" of such knowledge 
— for example, in fields of electricity or bacteriology — multiply at a rate 
that the average mind can not follow. 

F. BEAUTY 

INTERPRETATIONS 01'' EXPERIENCE 

1. The progress of historic peoples has often been judged in important 
degree by their "art products" — meaning thereby creations carrying large 
appeal to esthetic sensibilities. What are your impressions, by these stand- 
ards, of the achievements of : the Greeks ; the ancient Egyptians ; the Christian 
Church prior to 1200; the Christian Church from 1200 to 1600; Puritanism; 
the Hawaiians ; the older Chinese ? 

2. What are the distinguishable "art elements" or "art factors" in these 
contemporary things that make vivid appeal to your esthetic appreciations : 
opera performances; opera music apart from performance; magazine illus- 
trations; church architecture; moving pictures as color, as form, as scenery, 
as sentiment; moving-picture musical accompaniments; moving -picture drama; 

* W. Libby's Introduction to the History of Science (Ch. 19 and 20, The Scien- 
tific Imagination, and Science and Democratic Culture). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 265 

modern poetry; photographs of Greek sculpture; cast copies of Greek sculp- 
ture; fine photographs; interpretive dancing; the short story? 

3. What seem to you to be the "social uses" of: community singing; pubHc 
statuary; monumental capital, court, and school buildings; patriotic music; 
performances of classical plays? 

What moving pictures have you seen that seemed to you to render a large 
social service as well as to divert or entertain the audience? 

What poetry of which you have knowledge seems to render valuable social 
service? Does it accomplish this through its esthetic appeal directly, or is 
this merely a means ? 

4. If you could give a large sum of money to promote some kind of fine art, 
to what particular ends and in what particular forms would you give it? 

THE FUNCTIONS OF ART ^ 

The esthetic values for human beings have a very wide range, and 
seem to reach very far back in the evolution of the species. Primitive 
man doubtless derived a variety of satisfactions from sensuous — some- 
times sensual — experiences with the senses of touch, temperature, taste, 
and smell. Was it in later stages of his evolution that he learned to ap- 
preciate harmonies of color and form, of sound, and of image, sentiment 
or idea as suggested by language? We can not be certain. We have 
evidence that the barbarian, or even the neolithic savage, cared much for 
brilliant colors, for crude rhythms of musical instrument and chant of 
voice, and for certain striking harmonies of design. Some twenty-five 
thousand years ago artists in the caves of Spain were picturing with much 
fidelity, as well as esthetic sensitiveness, the living forms about them. 
The Cretans of one hundred centuries ago were carving stone and shap- 
ing clay in accordance with well developed esthetic standards. We can 
readily believe that the poetic forms found in the Iliad or in the Song 
of Solomon were the latest evolutions of literary expressions (orally 
transmitted in the main, of course) that had their origins scores, if not 
hundreds, of centuries earlier. 

Civilized man strives constantly toward novel and perhaps higher forms 
of esthetic demand and expression. The sensuous gratifications of touch, 
taste, and smell are now largely tabooed, or at any rate relegated to mar- 
ginal fields. The man who cultivates a considerable range of keen gas- 
tronomic interests and gratifications is suspect, whilst the woman who 
seeks, beyond certain boundaries of delicate appreciation, sensuous satis- 
factions in scents and perfumes is held as vulgar, if not worse. 

" See C. H. Coffin, Art for Life's Sake (especially Gh. 6-15) ; L. N. Tolstoi, What 
Is Art? (Ch. 5-8, The Functions of Art). 



266 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

In the arts of form and color, as well as of sound, esthetic standards 
seem difficult to establish securely. All human beings, apparently, greatly 
value pictures, decoration of person, various kinds of music. But what 
is commonly called "good taste" establishes certain approved standards in 
these matters from which the young, the less intelligent, the less con- 
ventional, and perhaps the more fashion-pursuing, seem continually to 
be slipping away. 

The social ministry of the fine arts — that is, of all arts that make 
esthetic appeal — is still sociologically obscure. It is obvious that the 
promoters of religiousness have very extensively used the plastic arts 
and music as mean* of appeal. To a lesser extent they have used drama, 
poetry, and artistic prose. 

Historically, the same has been true of war. The combative qualities 
of man have been fanned into flame and the fires of loyal devotion to 
country have been fed over long periods by music, painting, sculpture, 
heroic tale, oratory, and epic. Patriotism and personal sacrifice have been 
stimulated and given concrete objective, in part by appeals to the emotional 
nature which have utilized esthetic sensibilities. 

The transformation of the basic instincts of love into sublimations 
giving beauty and duration to conjugal unions has long been aided by 
various esthetic appeals. Where courtship can be illumined with music, 
literature, and beauty of form and color, the foundations are laid — at 
least, such seem to be the conclusions of social experience — for the finer 
forms of family life. 

In many other respects the fine arts have served to exalt and prolong 
the larger and less instinctive forms of social cooperation. Literature 
seems in numberless ways to upbuild the moral life. The refinements of 
form and color introduced into the innumerable adjuncts of every-day 
existence — dress, tools, housing, books, manners — are widely believed to 
contribute toward richness and humanness of spirit. 

Nevertheless a perpetual conflict takes place between those who would 
maintain that all art or afl beauty is to be considered primarily as a "good 
in itself" and those others who think it should serve as a means to "higher" 
ends. 

G. RELIGIOUSNESS 

INTERPRETATIONS OE EXPERIENCE 

I. Observing the experience of yourself and your associates, what seem 
to you some of the intrinsic satisfactions resulting from the possession of 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 267 

deep-seated and non-conflicting religious beliefs ? Do women seem to be more 
religious than men? Young than old? Persons of high intelligence than 
those of inferior intelligence? 

2. Describe respects in which it has seemed to you that well established 
religious faiths have : assuaged grief and discouragement in time of death or 
other disaster; given men courage and endurance in time of war; served as 
guides and controls toward a moral or virtuous life; induced men to give 
much care to their health, or to the accumulation of wealth? 

3. What seem to be some of the conditions under which large numbers of 
persons — the early Christians, early Protestants, Catholics in eighteenth-cen- 
tury England, Puritans, Huguenots, Quakers, and others — have been willing 
to endure persecution rather than surrender religious beliefs? 

4. What seem to you to be some of the effects of the advance of science 
on creeds and well defined beliefs? Do the resulting changes seem in the 
long run to make it easier for some men to dispense with religion? Or 
does it become natural to seek satisfactions in more extended faiths, or in 
a "religion of social works" ? 

5. What are some of the educational means commonly employed to conserve 
religious faiths or to transmit the religious inheritance ? 

THE PLACE OF RELIGION ^° 

Primitive religious reactions seem everywhere to involve certain ap- 
parently instinctive qualities. The most manifest is that of projecting 
known human or animal qualities into invisible beings assumed to in- 
habit the dark inaccessible regions above, or below, the earth, and the 
void beyond mundane reality. The qualities thus projected, as was shown 
in Chapter X, are readily intensified or distorted, in imagination and 
teaching, so that the good become very good, the bad very bad, the beauti- 
ful very beautiful, and the strong very strong. The next step, that of 
reverencing, loving, fearing, placating, or detesting the beings thus pos- 
tulated, is easy. Upon and around these attitudes and actions are formed 
religious groups and systems. 

It is inevitable that intelligent, imaginative man should assume the 
existence of beings more powerful, more wise, and more enduring than 
himself. The complexity, the order, and the magnitude of his universe 
compel the postulation of the existence of bemgs able to create and uphold 
that universe. This is hardly less true of highly civilized than of primitive 
man. 

Since his environment sometimes pleases, and sometimes distresses, 

"Review C. S. MacFarland, Spiritual Culture and Social Service; and S. 
Mathews, The Individual and the Social Gospel. 



268 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

him, he naturally infers the existence of invisible beings capable of 
beneficent or of maleficent intentions and powers. His relations with par- 
ents, brothers, victims, and enemies suggest endless possibilities of placat- 
ing, cooperating, evading, or defying these beings. Quite naturally the 
old, the wise, and often the natural leaders take the initiative here and 
influence the younger and less imaginative. Thus priesthoods arise, with 
creeds and rituals as usual accompaniments. 

Religion becomes a means of social control in nearly all societies, 
since its leading exponents interpret the alleged wills and expectations of 
divine powers.^^ Instinctive desires for approval, fears of punishment, 
feelings of confidence when strong ones are on "our side" — all these are 
enlisted to nerve men for war, to hold women to obedience, to enforce 
taboos, to sustain law and creed. 

Superficial thinkers often associate religious control with a variety 
of pathological manifestations which become conspicuous in decadent 
societies. They infer that the leadership of primitive priesthoods is 
usually designing and selfish, and that the means employed lead to social 
corruption. But the appreciative sociologist must recognize in all forms 
of religion, reaching far back into magic and the outgrowths of animism, 
social forces of the utmost importance in the evolution of societies. 
There have been corrupt priests and priesthoods, just as there have been 
corrupt governors and governments, warriors and armies, and business 
enterprisers and enterprises. But for unnumbered peoples and for long 
eras the binding qualities of an approved religion have contributed cer- 
tain factors to social solidarity as nothing else could. Its sanctions 
have effectively aided social control, the reign of law, and the higher 
forms of cooperation as could those of no other agency. 

Religion and morality are, for this reason, often thought of as inter- 
dependent social factors, so long have men been accustomed to see at least 
the higher forms of morality rest upon foundations of religious ideal, creed, 
and ritual. But there is no necessary connection. It may indeed prove 
very difficult to vitalize and enforce moral practice in all those regions 
of life where secret or easily disguised action is possible, if no compelling 
religious beliefs can be appealed to. But the contention, sometimes made 
by special advocates, that morality is not practicable except as an out- 
growth of religion, is negated by limitless evidence, easily to be had from 
the histories of all kinds of social groups from families to empires. 

The divisive effects of religious groupings have been hardly less in 
history than have been the divisive effects of race, economic competition, or 

"Ross, Social Control (Ch. i6, Social Religion). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 269 

nationalism. Age-long rivalries, fierce persecutions, and numberless forms 
of caste and other undemocratic barriers have been erected between men 
in the name of religion. When religious differences coincide somewhat 
with lines of political or racial cleavage, the oppositions developed — for 
example. South Irish against English, Armenians against Turks, Islam 
against Christianity — become very implacable and destructive. But it 
seems probable that among more progressive peoples the spirit of religious 
antagonism is waning. Possibly the actual social situation should be 
described, on the one hand, as a strengthening of the causes of large-group 
antagonisms found in economic, political, and ethnic rivalries, and a weak- 
ening of the unifying effects of each type of religious belief. Certainly 
the spectacle presented by the Great War — wherein Christians, Moham- 
medans, the Jews, Catholics and Protestants on each side fought fiercely 
against each other — is capable of hardly any other interpretation. 

The evolution of scientific knowledge imposes many transformations 
upon religious faiths. Simple anthropomorphic interpretations of deities 
must give way to more general and abstract interpretations. The concrete 
accretions of dogma and historical explanation inevitably formed in elabo- 
rating and translating religion for the illiterate are often forced by the 
progress of scientific knowledge to undergo slow or sudden disintegrations 
and painful reconstruction. Such times of transition may be fatal to the 
faiths of weak or naturally selfish men. They almost certainly make 
harder the education of children and youth in the realities of the faith, 
since these can hardly learn except through the concrete realistic analogies 
and lifelike symbols that anthropomorphic interpretations so abundantly 
provide. 

Congregations, the smallest and most personal of religious groups, are 
commonly provided for the furtherance of worship through collective sup- 
port and mutual stimulation. They readily become agencies of "fellow- 
ship" or "sociability" and sometimes of sumptuary cooperation. Primitive 
Christian congregational communities were often essentially communistic. 
Quite naturally, too, congregations have often become more or less active 
centers from which proliferate political, economic, and defensive groups. 
They often exert themselves also in the promotion o'f educational and 
relief work, and in accumulating instrumentalities for the diffusion of 
knowledge and for esthetic representation. "Churches" have for long 
periods been among the most vital of existing agencies in fostering music, 
plastic art including architecture, education, relief, and some of the "arts" 
essential to the perpetuation of the social inheritance. 

Not infrequently there are formed under religious auspices, in nearly 



270 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

all great denominations, societies, orders, brotherhoods, schools, or cults, 
specializing in the conservation or promotion of particular social functions. 
These seek detachment from other functions, concentration of work, and 
mutual reinforcement of membership through a variety of devices — 
poverty, celibacy, ascetic self-denial, dedication to charitable work or to 
study. The sociological "values" of these agencies are hard to estimate. 
Possibly they are very great in times of social reconstruction ; and pos- 
sibly their values reduce to the zero point or even become seriously negative 
under some other conditions. Certainly history presents not a few ex- 
amples — some of which certainly survive in central Asia to this day — of 
such self-perpetuating groups having not only outlived their usefulness, 
but of having become destructively parasitic, if not predatory. 

H. FELLOWSHIP 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. Under what circumstance's, in your experience, does excess of "fellow- 
ship" become a harm to other "goods" ? Do the typical residents of American 
cities seem to you prevailingly to suffer from (a) too little, (&) too much, 
or (c) the wrong kinds of fellowship? Do they suffer therefrom as respects 
(a) economic efficiency, (b) acquisition of knowledge, (c) religiousness? 

2. Do the pupils of a large coeducational high school suffer frequently from 
deficiencies of fellowship? Do they tend to become excessively gregarious? 
By what standards ? 

3. Show several respects in which modern efforts toward higher forms of 
"conduct of life" are seeking to extend or modify usual manifestations of 
fellowship. 

FELLOWSHIP AS A VALUE 

The social values of fellov^^ship, like those of beauty and wealth, are 
regarded with mixed appreciations by many students, because of the degen- 
erative accompaniments so ^of ten attaching to them. Fellowship groups, as 
shown earlier, are often groups in which snobbishness, vice, and indolence 
flourish. In cities and other areas of dense population the very "like- 
minded" can easily search out and find each other — whether those be 
irresponsible adolescent girls, luxurious idle wives, released prisoners, 
old soldiers, "old soaks," rapacious millionaires, sculptors, or specialists in 
biological research. Similarities of work, social surroundings, and taste 
constitute fertile soil for the growth of grateful companionship, friendship, 
fellowship, and conviviality of all sorts. 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 271 

Every intimate group, as long as it can hide away from, or resist pres- 
sure of, other groups, seems to tend primarily to reinforce and extend 
the primitive and relatively instinctive qualities of its members. Men often 
work best, if not in solitude, at least in a state of freedom from pressing 
sociability stimuli. But they also seem best to play, divert, and recreate 
themselves in small compact groups. Hence the suspicious attitudes with 
which those most concerned with social stability — priests, business leaders, 
parents, and the like — regard all social groupings in which congenial fel- 
lowship plays a large role — gangs, cliques, habitual foregatherers in 
saloons, poolrooms, and taverns, social clubs, political clubs, boarding 
houses, and residential institutions. The well-springs of bureaucracies are 
often found in the instinctive fellowship groups formed by paid officials. 
The tendency of members of small gregarious groups — from the children 
of a school room to the social "four hundred" of a city or a titled aristoc- 
racy — not only not to "inform" on each other, but even in crises to "stand 
by" each other, is, obviously, one of the greatest of existing obstacles to the 
promotion of general social righteousness and "good will among men." 

I. PROGENY AND RACE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. In what respects, as regards conservation of progeny, can you trace simi- 
larities between man and the higher mammals? In what respects profound 
differences ? Young human beings remain immature a much longer number 
of years than do any mammals or birds. How can this be related to the 
"transmission of the social inheritance" and man's greater dependence for 
any kind of success upon acquired experience and education? 

2. What kinds of examples can you recall of mature adults who had no 
interest in children or the well-being of children? Of unmarried men and 
women who exhibited extraordinary solicitude for the children of others, 
especially the neglected and abused? 

3. Is divorce more frequent amongst parents with, or without, children? 
What are possible explanations? Does it seem to you that many men and 
women forego marriage because of unwillingness to assume responsibility 
for the upbringing of children? 

How do you account for the fact that relatively small percentages of well 
educated women marry? To what extent does lifelong celibacy seem to 
prevail among well educated men? For what probable reasons? 

4. During recent years a very low birth rate has prevailed amongst classes 
of superior education and economic position in France, England, Australia, 
and the United States. What are some probable explanations? Separately 



272 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

consider those explanations which reflect favorably on the social qualities 
of the adults involved, and those others which imply selfishness and viciousness. 

5. Many of the public movements for the protection and education of chil- 
dren are sustained largely by celibate women. What are some problems of 
social values involved ? 

6. It is said by some observers that "overpopulation is the curse of China" 
and that overpopulation is closely dependent upon excessive valuations of 
progeny as a means of ancestor-respect. Comment. 

7. Does it appear to you that some races are "superior" to others? Su- 
perior in what respects — bodily size, healthfulness, inventiveness, peaceful- 
ness, martial virtues, musical interests, morality, religiousness, thrift? Does 
it seem that some family stocks have been for several generations superior 
to others? Superior in what — good citizenship, health, religious devotion, 
scholarship, esthetic appreciation, martial zeal, parenthood? Are there family 
groups which, generation after generation, seem to produce large proportions 
of adults of low moral, intellectual, and physical standards? 

8. Are the following qualities as found in adults probably due more to 
biological heredity than to "social inheritance" : color of eyes ; mathematical 
abilities; correctness of English speech; esthetic interests in music; scholar- 
ship; size of body; moral control of sex impulses; fondness for hunting; 
resistance to malaria; religiousness? 

9. In what respects do the following seem respectively "superior" and 
"inferior" to old-stock Americans as respects factors of biological heredity: 
Japanese; Italians; American Indians; Negroes; Russian peasants; Danes? 

10. When men lived chiefly by hunting and fishing, when destruction by 
wild animals and hostile men was frequent, famine an almost yearly affliction, 
and a high death rate among children prevailed, what "qualities of fitness 
to surviv.' would probably be perpetuated and increased? 

When pastoral life and tillage "became the chief occupations of men, what 
would become "qualities of survival"? Under present conditions what types 
of individuals disproportionately "depart" (in youth or age) without off- 
spring? Is it probable that any kinds of natural "selection" are now going 
on? In such a way as possibly to modify qualities of biological heredity? 

11. Under present conditions in most civilized countries, which of the 
groups in the following pairs probably bring to maturity the larger pro- 
portion of healthy offspring: the rich or the poor; brain workers or manual 
workers; old, settled stocks or recent immigrants; the very religious or the 
irreligious; the well educated or poorly educated; the ambitious or unam- 
bitious; the artistic or the inartistic; negroes or whites; Russian Jews or 
Scandinavians; healthy or unhealthy; urban or rural dwellers? 

What is meant by race suicide? Is a "low birth rate" necessarily an evil? 
Is a low birth rate among superior "stocks" and a high birth rate among 
inferior stocks an evil ? How do you distinguish "inferior" from "superior" ? 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 273 



HUMAN STOCK ^^ 

The perpetuation of species constitutes, along with self-preservation, 
one of the major interests, conscious or mechanical, in all organic evolu- 
tion. Numberless adaptations are evolved among plants and animals to 
insure an effective "start in life" to offspring. Among these are strong 
instinctive valuations of the young "for their own sake" found among the 
higher vertebrates, as manifested in maternal solicitude, paternal affection 
(in a few species), and parental education. 

Among civilized human beings these qualities develop extensive interac- 
tions with other purposes in life. The family, and especially the lifelong 
conjugal union, evolves as a means. Property, once accumulated toward 
the later satisfactions of its possessors, is also stored for the use of 
children. Maternal sohcitude follows adult children throughout life. 
Pride of family and interest for the continuance — ^usually along male lines 
of descent — of name, material possessions, and traditions becomes acute. 
The Chinese long ago evolved ancestor respect (often called worship) 
to a degree that has made preoccupations with progeny transcend, among 
them, any other pursuits in Hfe. 

On the other hand, civilization seems also at times to impair, if not 
nullify, appreciations of family and progeny. Under disturbed, and 
especially under dynamic, conditions of social evolution, many men and 
women, engrossed in the pursuit of other goods — wealth, knowledge, art, 
religion, and even convivial fellowship — neglect or refuse the responsi- 
bilities of family life. Perhaps this becomes most apparent in tho'^' modern 
cities where on the one hand are offered abundant opportunities to "rise" — 
in wealth, the social scale, or to powers of leadership; and on the other 
where the economic and other burdens of child rearing far surpass those 
found where children early become in part at least self-supporting and 
self-directing. It is under these conditions that there are obviously mani- 
fested in modern times the phenomena of "race suicide" — not all of which, 
however, are symptomatic of atrophied interests in children. 

Public interest in childhood, a frequent accompaniment of large-gfoup 
evolutions in state, church, guild, and economic groups, serves as a crude 
measure of the socialization of the values of progeny. State or nation 
naturally conserves childhood, and • especially that part of it which is 
deprived of parental care, largely at first from military or economic 

^See S. J. Holmes, Trend of the Race (Ch. 8, Natural Selection in Man) ; alsc 
E. G. Conklin, Heredity and Environment (Ch. 6, Genetics and Ethics). 



274 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

motives. Churches conserve the young as a means of reahzing their higher 
ends, here or hereafter. Only vi^ithin very recent centuries have philan- 
thropic, political, and religious impulses merged into a kind of composite 
social demand for the conservation of the well-being of all children as a 
measure of fundamental social justice. This outgrowth of social economy 
now dominates in legislative and philanthropic proposals and activities 
looking to governmental regulation of education, child labor, protection 
of the parentless, provision of growth facilities, and the like, which are 
so much in evidence in progressive communities. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bryce, J. South America (Ch. i6, The Future of South America). 

Bruere, a. The Nezv City Government. 

Cleveland^ F. A. Organized Democracy. 

CooLEY^ C. H. Social Process (Ch. 20, Economic Factors; Ch. 21, Pov- 
erty and Propagation). 

Crile^ G. W. Man, an Adaptive Mechanism (Part III, Biologic Inter- 
pretation of Phenomena of Health and Disease). 

FuLLERTON^ W. M. Problems of Power. 

Gillin^ J. L. Poverty and Dependency (Ch. 38, Population and Poverty; 
and Ch. 39, Science and the Problems of Poverty and Dependency). 

Hill, H. W. The New Public Health (Ch. 2, The Old Principles and 
the New). 

Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race (Ch. 4, Heritable Basis of Crime 
and Delinquency). 

Kelley, Edmond. Government or Human Evolution. 

KijRKPATRiCK, E. A. The Use of Money (Ch. 1-5, Essentials of Thrift 
Education). 

Lee, F. S. The Human Machine (Ch. 8-10, Maintenance of Working 
Powers). 

McKechnie, W. S. The Individual and the State. 

Ogg, F. a., and Beard, C. A. National Governments and the World War. 

Pa«melee, M. Criminology (Ch. 6, The Economic Basis of Crime). 

Powers, H. H. The Message of Greek Art (Ch. 8-1 1, Art and Empire 
in Athens). 

Riis, J. A. How the Other Half Lives (Ch. 1-4). 

Ross, E. A. The Old World in the New (Ch. 12, American Blood and 
Immigrant Blood). 

Slosson, E. E. Creative Chemistry (Ch. 1-3, Values). 



THE MAJOR SOCIAL VALUES 275 

Sparks, E. E. The Expansion of the American People (Ch, 33, Ameri- 
can Reforms and Reformers). 

Tyler, J. M. Growth and Education (Ch. i, Present Needs; Ch. 2, Man 
in Light of Evolution). 

Warbasse, J. P. Medical Sociology (Ch. 4, Some Medical Aspects of 
Civilization). 



CHAPTER XXII 
SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EACH one of us has fairly definite conceptions of "individual efficiency" 
in terms of health, wealth, right behavior, education, companionable- 
ness, and the like. The education to which, earlier, we have been sub- 
jected and to which, later, we subject ourselves, has aimed in large measure 
to make us more efficient physically, vocationally, socially, or culturally. 
As we have em ^ ed from adolescence we have increasingly aspired toward 
the means of . .dividual success — vocational, marital, cultural, and the 
rest. 

We have also a large variety of particular conceptions of collective or 
group efficiency. Each one of us could formulate many of the evidences 
of a successful or efficient family, fraternity, political party, cooperative 
body of farmers, hotel, school, city, or nation. Out of our experience and 
standards it is practicable to construct certain general conceptions of social 
efficiency : 

1. What are some of the usual symptoms of "social inefficiency" in family 
groups? Under various circumstances trace these to defects in: the husband 
and father; the wife and mother; the children; other relatives; economic con- 
ditions beyond the family's control ; widely accepted social standards affecting 
the family's conditions, some at present perhaps unexplainable in terms of 
social, good ? 

How do you evaluate: (a) divorce, in relation first to family, and second 
to general social efficiency? (&) Celibacy, same? (c) Irresponsibly large 
families? {d) Purposefully very small families? {e) Late marriage? (/) 
Illegitimacy? (^r) Interracial marriages? {h) Marriages between those of 
widely different religious faiths? (i) Marriages between rich and poor? (_/) 
Between well and poorly educated? {k) Between old and young? 

Under what conditions, if any, does it seem to you that these might con- 
tribute to the social efficiency of the family : polygamy ; adoption of wife into 
husband's parental group ; systematic teaching of birth control ; freer divorce ; 
more difficult divorce; subsidies for maternity; outworking (for wages) of 
mothers ? 

Review various current social efforts to "improve" family life in America. 

2. What are the ordinary tests of the social efficiency of employment groups 
(master-servant, master-apprentice, employer-employee, foreman-worker, cor- 

276 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 277 

porations, etc.) ? Trace various recognizable contemporary defects, and as- 
sign, if practicable, to: individual employer; employee; corporate employer; 
unionized employees ; legal restrictions affecting one or both ; absence of 
legal compulsion on one or both ; some conditions over which neither have 
control, such as business panics. 

Analyze contemporary difificulties in these employment relations : domestic 
service ; farm "hired man" service ; large corporations as employers ; govern- 
ment as employer; ocean transporters as employers; children as employees; 
women as wage-working employees ; recent immigrants as employees ; adults 
of low intelligence rating as employees. 

Under what conditions, if any, is social efficiency probably increased by 
forced employment of : war captives ; hereditary slaves ; vagrants and crim- 
inals; indentured immigrants; subject races? Under what conditions is social 
efficiency probably diminished by such action? 

Analyze various contemporary efforts to improve employment relations. 
Trace certain difficulties to necessities of : extending specialization of direc- 
tive service; employing much "large tool" or machine equipment; utilizing 
labor of low native intelligence ; geographic specialization of production. Sup- 
ply representative examples. 

3. What are the ordinary tests of the "social efficiency" of commercial 
groupings or relationships (buyer-seller, lender-borrower, middleman-con- 
sumer, etc.) ? (For present purposes "transport" will be considered as pro- 
duction, only commodity or capital exchange being considered as commerce.) 
Trace various recognized defects in exchange at present, ascribing to : igno- 
rance of buyer, deceitfulness of seller, inpecuniosity of buyer, monopoly of 
sellers, adulterations, excess of legal restrictions, absence of legal directions 
of controls, etc. 

Trace commercial transactions usually required between producer and con- 
sumer in case of: coffee; capital (New England depositor in savings bank, 
and Arizona railroad builder) ; Washington lumber; Newfoundland cod; New 
York published magazines; New England cotton cloth; South African dia- 
monds. 

Show social values of "pure food" laws; standardized brands; fixed prices; 
legal penalization of untrue advertising ; price regulation in war-time. As now 
prevailing, do the following seem to give net social values: display adver- 
tising; competitive price cutting; multiplication of selling intermediaries; 
traveling sellers (agents, canvassers) ? 

4. What are ordinary tests of "social efficiency" of such political groupings 
as: the town; the county; the municipality; the American state (province); 
the dominion (British Empire) ; the nation; the empire; the alliance? Discuss 
from standpoint of such social functions as : defense against external enemies ; 
maintenance of internal order and justice; promotion of internal improve- 



278 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ments; imposition of taxes; sustaining fair play toward minorities; co- 
operation with religious agencies; regulation of production and commerce 
(coinage, tariffs, valorization, bankruptcy, incorporation, etc.) ; promotion of 
health (inspection, quarantine, technical education, etc.) ; promotion of edu- 
cation. 

What social defects of political functioning do we now associate with : abso- 
lute monarchy; hereditary governing classes; restricted suffrage; unrestricted 
suffrage; representative government; suffrage selection of specialists; im- 
perial controls of the British type; temperate zone governments domi- 
nating tropical peoples; Latin temperament; illiterate suffrage; large cities; 
sparsely settled towns or counties ; provincial direction of internal improve- 
ments ? 

What seem to be most pronounced defects at present of political functionings 
of: France; New York State; Chicago; Egypt; Canada (Dominion); the 
North Mississippi Valley county ; Chinese Empire ; the American medium-sized 
city? 

Analyze various proposals for (a) extending the range, and (&) improving 
the qualities, of political mechanisms and functionings. What are chief causes 
of war? Of defensive wars? Of wars of aggression? What have been 
chief benefits of defensive wars? Have American wars of aggression against 
Indians resulted in social good? 

What is "state socialism"? What are its chief immediate objectives? What 
are the most serious defects in its theories? 

What part do you now play in contributing to the political efficiency of 
your town, city, state, nation? Do you conform well? Do you initiate or 
lead in anything ? How do you help toward national defense ? Maintenance 
of internal order? State economic enterprise? Public education? Public 
welfare in other respects? Describe some of the worst political cooperators 
you know. 

5. Under American conditions what contributions to social efficiency do 
political parties make? What are usual signs of "good" parties? What are 
usual mechanisms of parties? Analyze the historic defects of parties — under 
such heads as leadership ; coercion of members ; aggrandizement of members ; 
loss of control by members (to oligarchies or bureaucracies) ; paralysis of 
effort by members (excess of passive democracy) ; antisocial aims (for larger 
groups) ; Utopian aims. 

Analyze good and evil results from "bloc" party systems. Contrast social 
efficiencies of party systems that always divide in multiples of two, with other 
forms of division. What are contrasts of parties formed on residential basis 
with those on occupational basis ? What is the "soviet" ? 

Analyze current proposals for improved mechanisms and functionings of 
parties. 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 279 

6. Religious groupings — congregations, churches, denominations, sects — 
seem to be most socially efificient when conforming to what conditions as to : 
Competition among each other? Possession of property? Seeking po- 
litical conformity and economic cooperation of members? Perpetuation 
of historic cultures, taboos, ceremonials? Social works? Internal govern- 
ment? 

What seem to be prevailing defects of congregational groupings in America ? 
Which seem due to faulty mechanisms? To faulty traditions? To external 
conditions ? 

What are factors that make religion (in a given group) "vital"? Which 
of these seem to be impaired by extension of scientific knowledge ? Freedom 
of social intercourse ? Extension of public education ? 

7. Fellowship (sociability, companionship, friendly intercourse) seems often 
to function best when it comes as an accompaniment of or by-product to, the 
cooperations of defense, production, worship, party, cult, family, or utilization. 
But groups are often formed primarily for fellowship — the festival, dance, 
card-party, reception, club, lodge, excursion, picnic, "joint," "hangout," gang, 
social clique, etc." 

Why do fellowship groupings seem so often to be antisocial? Trace rela- 
tionships of vices — gambling, idleness, quarreling, unchastity, intemperate 
drinking, profanity — to fellowship groupings. Under what conditions can fel- 
lowship groupings effectively cohere or hold together different ages? Sexes? 
Economic' levels ? Religious diversities? Cultural diversities? 

In what respects do the conditions of modern life render unnecessary spe- 
cialized groupings for fellowship — examples from squads of workers, coedu- 
cation in schools, mingling of sexes in office and factory, joint worship, urban 
or suburban residence, vacation gatherings, lunching clubs, group travel, etc.? 

In what respects do modern conditions render specialized fellowship group- 
ings very much desired? Illustrate from rural life; frontier settlement; travel- 
ing salesmanship ; specialized factory, railway, and mining work ; the isolations 
of home-makers; isolations of large urban life; same, of racial intermix- 
tures, etc. 

Analyze current attempts to increase social efficiency through promotion or 
restriction of fellowship groupings, noting especially saloons, dance halls, com- 
munity houses, institutional churches, automobile travel, parks, lodges, frater- 
nities, social activities in schools, etc. Trace barriers between: young and old; 
refined and unrefined; married men and women; races, etc., encountered in 
promoting fellowship. What is English "caste"? American snobbishness? 
Indian caste? 

Under modern conditions, what are some sound possibilities of combining 
fellowship and nefeded recreations? Discuss under different ages and for 
each sex in connection with : physical recreation ; intellectual recreation ; social 
recreation. Give examples of current successful practices. 



28o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



SCOPE OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY ^ 

Social efficiency, a term recently somewhat corrupted by bad associa- 
tions, is, nevertheless, very useful in denoting any assemblage of the 
qualities that make for "life more abundantly." A social group can be 
"efficient" only in the sense that any other complex organism is efficient — 
that is, w^hen all its functions are well executed, and in such a way as not 
unduly to diminish possibiHties of future performance. The objectives 
of cooperation in groups, large or small, are to further the "valuable pur- 
poses" of the members— both those now living, and those yet to come. 
Security of life, liberty, possessions, and reputation ; augmented and easier 
production of material goods ; more and better diffused knowledge ; in- 
creased incorporation of beauty into all the adjuncts and processes of 
life ; righteousness become like an atmosphere of life ; sociable intercourse, 
free and abundant for all; religion a guiding torch as well as a solace for 
all ; continuance of the best of our race to carry on our inheritance— these 
are the values to be realized through the joint efforts of men, sometimes 
involving millions of cooperations, and in evolutionary processes extend- 
ing over hundreds of years. Any society becomes efficient in proportion 
as it realizes these values for the personalities affected by it. Morality 
or religiousness may be just as important a factor in social efficiency as 
government or preparedness for war. Public education and well admin- 
istered courts are means of social efficiency no less than railroads and 
diplomatic service. Fair dealing with neighboring groups — within or 
outside that special grouping, called the "nation" — may be just as im- 
portant a contribution to social efficiency as command of fertile soil and 
rich mines. 

The isolation and self-centeredness of a group — a family, a fraternity, 
a unionized craft, an intellectual cult, a religious denomination, or a small 
nation — may result in social inefficiency. The very intensity of unbal- 
anced centripetal tendencies often found within a clique, a clan, a party, a 
corporation, or a state, may prove no less destructive than the centrifugal 
effects of individualism, exaggerated altruism, or internationalism. Social 
efficiency, rightly conceived, is the product of the intricate composition of 
diverse factors — never as the product of a few taken separately. 

"Might makes right," as ordinarily used by propagandists, expresses, 

* Review Bagehot, Physics and Politics (Ch. 6, Verifiable Progress, Politically 
Considered) ; and E. A. Ross, The Foundations of Sociology (Ch. 8, The Factors of 
Social Change). 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 281 

obviously, a destructively narrow view. In the broader meaning of social 
evolution, might does, of course, make right — but it must be might of 
brain as well as of muscle, might of good will as well as of combativeness, 
might of will to save, as well as of will to destroy. If "the meek shall 
inherit the earth," then is meekness surely a factor in might. Respect for 
the past, and regard for the future, are just as certainly factors of strength 
in social groups as are weapons and other stored wealth. All history 
proves that banded pugnacity alone, or banded wealth alone, or even 
banded knowledge alone, is in the long run weak in the struggle for sur- 
vival. We may even yet have to learn that a society can have too much 
of those good things called democracy, beauty, religiousness, or sociability 
as ordinarily conceived. 

The socially efficient group is one in which reasonable measures of the 
social values are first realized for members of the group, and next per- 
mitted to others not of the group. Thus a "good" city or family or political 
party is one in which the cooperations made possible for the members 
bring them large measures of social values, whilst not unduly detracting 
from the well-being of non-group members, including the yet unborn. 

Every-day experience acquaints us with families that serve badly the 
purposes of rearing children or of holding men and women in the other 
cooperations for which the family was evolved ; with congregations that 
very imperfectly promote religious fellowship and joint worship ; with 
servant-master combinations that function badly in team work; and with 
nationalist groupings that give little of security or justice. In any large 
society the observant student can readily diagnose numberless imperfec- 
tions of structure, or inadequacies of functioning, in much the same way 
that the health expert can detect evidences of unsoundness in the physical 
bodies of men and women. 

Another kind of social inefficiency is that in which a group, however 
valuable in conserving the interests of its own members, does harm to 
persons outside. It is just as possible for a trade union, a club, a cult, or 
a state to serve its own ends at the expense of others as it is for a man 
as pirate, grafter, or monopolist to enrich himself by impoverishing others. 
Germany, exceptionally efficient in its internal organization, disregards the 
interests of other nations and thereby brings ruin upon herself . 

Every kind of social inefficiency tends, obviously, toward its own extinc- 
tion, as does every form of ill health. Every kind of genuine social 
efficiency, recognized or not, tends to the strengthening of the individuals 
and of cooperative mechanisms of those who practise it. 

But the recognition, and especially evaluation, of the factors of social 



282 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

efficiency is endlessly difficult as yet, partly because real social efficiency 
is in the long run a resultant of forces only some of which are as yet 
understood. We of the first decades of the twentieth century, living under 
the conditions of Western civilization, believe that the monogamous family, 
the republican state, the incorporated business enterprise, the non-poHtical 
church, the uncommercialized school, and the commercialized drama con- 
tribute more to social efficiency than would their opposites. But these 
means and methods of social efficiency are still experimental in important 
respects. 

SOCIAL PRODUCTS ^ 

Social processes, operating within social groups, give certain products 
that have a kind of independent existence. Collectively these constitute 
the social inheritance, and are all susceptible to valuation in terms of social 
efficiency. Institutions, standards, stored knowledge, art products, inven- 
tions, material improvements, customary interdependencies — it is prac- 
ticable and helpful to think of these as in a measure objective realities, 
quite apart from the human beings by and through whom they must at 
every moment be used and transmitted if they are indeed anything better 
than withered, cast-off skins, or last year's birds' nests. 

To the educator two facts regarding these social products are of great 
importance. First, rightly employed, they are enormously useful. Cleared 
land, a paved highway, an ancient invention, knowledge long ago achieved, 
the Roman arch, a constitution, a set of persistent customs, territorial 
specialization of production, a generally accepted moral principle — these 
represent in varying degrees social wealth, accrued gains, without which 
societies would speedily disintegrate. 

Second, these social creations, in spite of their seeming inanimate 
character, inevitably seize upon each new generation, not only to its 
benefit, but sometimes also to its hurt. Institutions and all similar social 
products are molds as well as machines. They bind growth as well as 
release energy. A bad custom may cramp a dozen generations. A half- 
good road may for ages prevent the building of a better. Old cities are 
the victims of narrow streets, as families may be for generations warped 
by the old houses they seem doomed to occupy. Small wonder that so 
many of the periods of rapid progress in civilization seem to accompany 
changes that opened new regions of land or ideas to men's efforts. 

^ See Ross, Principles (Part IV, Social Products; and Ch. 57, The Principle of 
Balance). 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 283 

Happiness or well-being of a particular species can not, according to 
the wisdom of the ages, be assiduously pursued without grave danger of 
defeating the very end sought. It is clear that too exclusive a quest for 
any form of good — even including the goods of security, health, knowledge, 
or religion — may easily distort life as a whole. A natural tendency, 
obviously, is toward immediate gratifications — and these are apt to war 
with remoter gratifications of a finer and more social sort. All teachers 
of ethics and other formulations from philosophies of life continually 
enjoin upon man the wisdom of properly postponing satisfactions, the 
virtue of subordinating low to high pursuits in the quest of happiness. 
Practice here is more or less incessantly at war with theory or ideal; and 
at times schools form about conflicting interpretations as to what is best 
in the long run. One urges, "Cast your bread upon the waters" ; another, 
"Oh, take the cash and let the credit go." 

Perhaps a relatively static social order— of the kind we associate with 
northern Africa and Asia for some thousands of years — evolves fairly 
well defined and rigorous standards of "relative values" — both as among 
the major fields heretofore enumerated, and also as among the various 
categories of high and low values to be established within each of them. 
But it is certain that in a very dynamic social order — such as that of 
western Europe and America during recent centuries — it remains a very 
difficult and uncertain task to formulate any adequate foundations of 
relative social values. Even religion and family life seem to shift their 
standards. But it is not too much to expect that a conscious social science 
will increasingly find ways of defining and scaling large numbers of social 
values. 

ULTIMATE GOALS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY ^ 

Sociology knows little as yet of objectives of social efficiency beyond 
those to be derived by projecting forward evolutionary tendencies already 
established and recognized. Like other organic species, man seeks to 
multiply, to possess the earth, to crowd out competing forms of life, — 
weeds, wolves, flies, bacteria, even other human beings, — and so to adapt 
himself to diflferent environments as to render further multiplication pos- 
sible. He strives for security, health, happiness. He far transcends all 
animals in building, transmitting, and using his "social inheritance" and 
in projecting goals toward which he strives. Hence the accumulation of 

^ For suggestive discussion see B. Kidd, Social Evolution (Ch. 2, Conditions of 
Human Progress; and Ch. 3, No Rational Sanctions for Progress). 



284 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

knowledge, the production of beauty, and preparation for the immortal 
life beyond, have become engrossing social quests. The pursuit of remoter 
goals has in many cases become closely incorporated with the instinctive 
life — multiplication, conquest, property acquisition — of all ; or it results 
from that variability in human offspring by which exceptional individuals — 
inventors, pioneers, artists, devotees, leaders — appear ; or it may arise from 
social crystalHzations about obscure instincts — religious movements, migra- 
tions. Among these remoter objectives of social evolution which well 
repay philosophical analysis are these : ( i ) Where does nature, and where 
should man, find optimum resultant between quality and quantity of 
human life? (2) Where does nature, and where should man, find optimum 
resultants as between the individual and the group ? ( 3 ) What are prob- 
abilities that existence after death is of such character as greatly to repay 
conscious preparation therefor in this life? 

The natural tendency of human life is to multiply in geometric ratios. 
But hunger, disease, and war act as positive checks. Population fairly 
chokes certain parts of Belgium, Italy, India, and China. The Sahara 
Desert, Labrador, Nevada, the Andes, support very few men. Where 
populations grow dense, disease in the past has flourished. Nature has 
endowed man with strong instincts of conquest as toward other species ; 
but also, what is less common in the animal world, with strong instincts 
to conquer from his fellows also. But organization and invention have 
helped men to multiply. Organization eliminates war as between local 
small groups, makes accumulation of property possible, and helps the 
stemming of disease. Domestication of rice and the water-buffalo make 
the "teeming Orient" possible. West European civilization has grown 
on wheat, cattle, iron, and ships. Maize and the bow and arrow made 
settled life possible to aboriginal America. Germany, England, Massa- 
chusetts, and Japan develop dense populations around manufacture and 
export. 

Recently have appeared voluntary checks on population. In Western 
nations standards of living now war on population increase — giving 
celibacy, postponed marriage, infertility, birth control, "race suicide." 
Perhaps polygamy insures larger numbers, but monogamy superior quality, 
of offspring — at least, in the temperate zones. Wealth, and its attendant 
exaltation of pleasure as an end, seem to extend prostitution, infertility, 
subnormal families. Intensification of parental interest, thrift, and fore- 
thoughtfulness generally, favor small families among superior stocks or 
social levels. Traditional religion strongly resents voluntary curtailment 
of family, except for religious ends. Quite probably, out of numberless 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 285 

conflicting and confused tendencies, are even now being evolved founda- 
tions of conscious policies soon to be generally accepted. 

Membership in groups, and sharing the responsibilities of these groups, 
usually both helps and hinders an individual. The hindering often seems 
to touch most those values that are immediate and insistent to him ; and 
the helping, the more remote, and perhaps less tangibly interesting, values. 
Individualistic and "small-group" instincts are always somewhat at war 
with social (or large group) requirements. The family, the local com- 
munity, the union, the church, and the state — especially when under pres- 
sure for unity in defensive action — tend to restrict the individual to 
industry, education, routine, conformity, sacrifice. They deprive him of 
freedom, play, gang associations, self-aggrandizement. All existing social 
adjustments exhibit endless compromises here — many of which are, 
obviously, provisional and opportunist only. 

The ideals of liberty, democracy, social efficiency, and Christianity inces- 
santly force education — as well as government, industry, worship — to try 
to discover fundamental laws or principles here. The social metaphysics 
of recent centuries seeks refuge in formulas and panaceas, and vibrates 
from pole to pole of faiths. But new factors constantly crop up. Other 
things remaining equal, would doubling the population of the United States 
increase or diminish the "large-group control" which seems to, and often 
does, cramp the individual? 

Would great improvements in social education enable the normal indi- 
vidual gracefully to accept necessary restraints and to find his satisfactions 
in paths of "socialized" freedom left open? Is a large measure of indi- 
vidual freedom practicable if organization for maximum economic produc- 
tion — or national defense — becomes necessary? "Liberty is not license, 
but freedom within the law" — that is, laws of large-group harmony. 

Of the same kind are problems of small — and relatively "natural" — 
groups as against large — and relatively artificial or "art-made" — groups. 
Enlarging national areas seems to make for peace, acculturation, economic 
development. It suppresses "small nations," local independence, etc. 
Should South Carolina be permitted to become a "small nation"? South 
Ireland? Scotland? Hawaii? Should India, Egypt, Canada, Korea 
become completely sovereign? Could they use such sovereignty advanta- 
geously to themselves or others ? 

The future life or immortality of the soul has for long periods been 
held as the supreme concern of mundane existence. Peoples and areas 
vary greatly as to their definiteness of beliefs and conceptions of "life 
beyond." Faiths as to personal immortality figured only slightly in Old 



286 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Testament theology, but they are extensive and basic in Christianity. India 
thinks much in terms of continued Hf e ; China apparently but little, at 
least in the Christian sense. For long periods Europe made mundane life 
largely apprenticeship for the career after death, a social situation which 
profoundly affected education and all other forms of social economy. 
Modern "intellectual" man, enlightened by science, discards anthropo- 
morphic deities and holds less to a strictly personal immortality ; but he 
evolves serener beliefs in great causative agencies and in the essential 
wisdom, economy, and purposiveness of the "Order of the universe" — 
attitudes that may easily be made to mean much to education for the 
"higher" social efficiency. 

PROBLEMS OF DEFINING AND MEASURING PROGRESS 

1. In what ways does it seem to you that social conditions or social life 
have improved in America since 1800? Separately consider: security 
against Indians ; accumulation of wealth ; control of epidemics ; develop- 
ment of public education ; invention. Consider also : progress in social 
righteousness, manners, religiousness. 

2. In what respects does it seem to you that we have gone backward? 
Separately consider: home or family education; the position of women; 
the growth of cities; immigration; religion; fellowship life and friendship; 
rural life. 

3. What seem to you the distinctive qualities especially characteristic 
of "good" and "bad" examples of the following social groups as at present 
constituted : corporations ; nations ; families ; fraternities ; political parties ; 
religious bodies; sociability or festive "parties"; employees' organizations? 

Give examples out of experience or history where groups of the follow- 
ing kinds have deteriorated from good to bad ; political parties ; religious 
denominations ; manual laborers' organizations ; sociability clubs ; nations ; 
a producers' cooperative society; an educational institution; a mutual 
benefit (insurance) society. 

Give instances of the reverse processes, where they have evolved from 
bad to good. 

Give instances of social groups or types of groups that, in popular esti- 
mation, are often: corrupt; predatory; self-centered; oppressive (of their 
own members) ; obscurantist (seeking to prevent or suppress new 
knowledge). 

4. What are typical cases of the "improvement" of social groups by 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 287 

improvement of: (a) their aims, purposes, or ideals; (&) their leadership; 
(c) their " follower ship" ; (d) their internal organization? 

In what ways does the "state" (including all law-making political bodies) 
try to "improve" : political parties ; religious organizations ; trade unions.; 
families ? 

In what ways is "good" education expected to lead to "improved" social 
relationships in these groups : families ; buyer-seller groups ; employer- 
employee groups ; fellowship groups ; cooperative production groups ; 
cooperative insuring of justice groups; consumers desiring diffusion of 
"beauty" ? 

What varieties of education, if any, are in the United States purpose- 
fully designed to provide "good membership" for : the family (in what 
relation — conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal?) ; the municipality; the rural 
"neighborhood community" ; the nation as a defensive organization ; the 
state as an agency to promote justice; the church; the employer-employee 
organization ; fellowship groupings ; cooperative groups for diffusion of 
knowledge or beauty? 

Contrast our practice here with that of other countries, present or past. 

PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS 

Is humanity progressing? Is that portion of it which occupies North 
America making progress? Is government, or the family, or Christianity 
making progress? Was the Great War a sign that civilization has 
"failed" ? Are race suicide and divorce, prevalent irreligion, or the collapse 
of Russia, to be taken as indicating the onset of possibly fatal diseases of 
civilization? Is the necessity for the "salvaging of civilization" as des- 
perate as H. G. Wells makes out?* 

Theologians, metaphysicians, and statesmen of philosophic bent indulge 
in much discussion and debate of these questions. Social scientists are 
apt to hold aloof from such controversies because they realize that we 
possess, as yet, no acceptable terms or standards whereby either to describe 
or to measure "progress." When -once agreement can be had on one 
factor of progress, then it becomes practicable to study various historic 
situations in terms of this factor. 

For example, famines seem once to have been more common in the 
Western world than they are at present. So also were epidemics of 
cholera, yellow fever, typhus, and smallpox. Peoples without these afflic- 

* See his Salvaging Civilisation (New York, 1921). 



288 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tions are, by common consent, "better off" to that extent than they other- 
wise were. 

Slavery, dueling, and imprisonment for debt or political disagreement 
were once common. At the same time, illiteracy prevailed and scientific 
knowledge was very slightly diffused. These particular evils have there- 
fore visibly lessened, at least among Western nations. 

Certain of the material goods of life are now procured with far less 
manual labor than was once the case. Disposal of waste (sewage), and 
conveyance of water in cities, provision of light, ocean transport, delivery 
of urgent messages, land transport, making of lumber, growing of wheat, 
fabrication of cloth, and the making of steel tools are now effected largely 
through mechanisms using harnessed natural forces. By most critics they 
are ranked as "advances," as far as they go. 

The population of the world has been increasing steadily during recent 
centuries. It is alleged to have doubled since 1830. Can we regard this 
as "progress" ? We have no available means of evaluation. Massachusetts 
had in 1920 nearly four million persons, old and young, living under fairly 
comprehensible conditions of well-being. In 1820 that state had fewer 
than a million people. Can we say that "progress" has taken place there? 
The population of India has greatly increased during British occupation, 
perhaps in part due to the suppression of civil wars by the British. Has 
all that constituted progress ? Our standards of value applicable here are 
of doubtful worth. 

Women in America have during the last century gained in certain fairly 
tangible forms of freedom. Has this contributed to their own well-being, 
to the well-being of others in their societies, or to the well-being of pos- 
terity, in ways that would justify placing such advances in freedom among 
the positive assets of a progressive civilization? We can speculate much 
about it ; but the facts yet elude us. 

We commonly claim that America has made "rapid progress" during the 
last century. But the sociologist may well ask whether such progress has 
been of certain groups partly at the expense of others. Have the Indians 
realized something in this progress? Immigrants from central Europe? 
The present inhabitants of Vermont? Men and women of deep native 
religiosity? Men and women gifted with only inferior mental powers? 
The esthetically sensitive? Those who, partly because of inferiority of 
native powers, must follow the less attractive manual vocations ? 

Several of the problems of the better present and future adjustment 
of man to his physical or geographic environment are discussed in the 
chapters on health, economic production, diffusion of knowledge, and 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 289 

improvement of stock. A few problems are so general in their nature 
as to deserve consideration here. 

Man's nature — that is, his original or biologically hereditary nature — 
has been, of course, a relatively plastic thing throughout the remote ages. 
Processes of social adaptation to various environments have gradually 
changed this nature through the several methods of natural selection. Is 
his nature still plastic to change? Will further adaptations take place 
naturally, or can they be produced by some artificial means yet to be 
developed through the science of eugenics ? Very little is as yet positively 
known regarding these problems. It is quite certain that if changes are 
now taking place in man's fundamental nature by selection and survival 
they are probably moving very slowly indeed. There is a possibility that 
the prolonged infection of civilized man with tuberculosis has gradually 
developed a greater degree of inherited immunity to this disease. In view 
of the very large proportions of vagrant men and women to whom during 
the last thousand years progeny has been denied on account of their roving 
dispositions and easy yielding to the vices of drunkenness, idleness, and 
the like, it may be that survival has considerably favored those stocks, 
families, or individual strands that possess greatest social stability. 

On the other hand, as discussed more fully in the chapter on family 
life, civilization may easily weight the scales heavily against certain very 
superior types when it comes to the perpetuation of stock. It is improbable 
that within the next few hundred years any considerable advances can 
be made in the purposive adaptation of man, in the deeper biological sense, 
to what are now, in all probability, adverse environments such as those 
of the tropics or of highly developed urban life. The extent and character 
of the adaptations that can be made after birth through habituation are 
by no means as yet known, and it is a safe inference that very large 
possibilities yet lie in this direction, especially through more perfectly 
adapted education than we have yet invented. 

The tropical regions of the earth's surface, especially in Africa and 
South America, offer some of the largest undeveloped potentialities for 
food supply now known. It is a common belief that men of the races 
inured to the cold regions of the earth's surface can not work heavily, and 
perhaps can not long thrive well, in these moist, tropical regions. It must 
be remembered, however, that during the last two or three hundred years 
very great progress has been made in substituting the use of mechanical 
powers for human hand labor, even in the tillage of the soil. Furthermore, 
means of combating microbic diseases are rapidly being evolved. Doubt- 
less much progress remains to be made in this direction, but it is certainly 



290 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

not impossible that within a century the great tropical valleys of Africa 
and South America will be extensively tilled by men using mostly power- 
driven machinery. 

Democratic self-government seems never yet to have been much of a 
success among peoples living in tropical climates. Whether this is due 
simply to their backwardness of development, or whether more funda- 
mental factors are involved, can not yet be clearly known. The trend, how- 
ever, of all recent evolution on the part of temperate zone governments 
controlling tropical areas and peoples has been in the direction of dimin- 
ished exploitation, as well as increased conservation, of the physical and 
other forms of well-being of tropical peoples. All signs of the times point 
to a gradual expansion of self-government for tropical peoples, in pro- 
portion as they develop abilities to respond to tutelage in these respects. 

The conservation of natural resources has become in recent years a 
large purpose in all collective social action. LTp to a certain point, man's 
mastery of his geographic environment involves the destruction of natural 
resources, such as game, minerals, woods, and even certain elements in 
soil fertility. In the long run, his control must replace these by better 
economic resources, or else he must find substitutes. 

Scientists speculate, from time to time, as to the probable extent of the 
resources yet to be developed on the earth's surface by scientific aids. 
Naturally, all such speculations must be somewhat vague. Invention has 
obviously made remarkable strides within recent years. Nitrogen, which 
constitutes one of the most necessary elements in soil fertility (in various 
compounds), is now being successfully extracted from the air. It is 
believed that large possibilities of increasing the world's food supply lie 
in the controlled improved breeding of nut, grain, and some other vege- 
table foods. There are those who believe that more controlled cultivation 
and exploitation of supplies of sea food could multiply its use to man. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Adams, Brooks. Law of Civilisation and Decay (Ch. 12). 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 34, The Tentative Character of 

Progress). 
Crozier, J. B. Civilisation and Progress (pp. 366-440). 
GiDDiNGS, F. Principles (Ch. 4, Bk. IV, The Nature and End of Society). 
Henderson, C. R. Citisens in Industry (Ch. 6, Education and Culture). 
Ellwood, C. a. An Introduction to Social Psychology (Ch. 13, Social 

Progress). 



SOCIAL EFFICIENCY AND PROGRESS 291 

Kelsey, C. Physical Basis of Society (Ch. 11, The Nature of Progress). 
Small, A. W. General Sociology (Ch. 50, Social Achievement in the 

United States). 
Todd, A. J. Theories of Social Progress (Ch. 6 and 7, Concepts and 

Criteria of Progress, and Ch. 33, Some Educational Implications of 

Social Progress). 
Wallas, G. The Great Society (Ch. i, The Great Society, and Ch. 13, 

The Organization of Happiness). 
Ward, L. F. Outlines of Sociology (Ch. 12, Collective Telesis). 
Wells, H. G. Social Processes in England and America (pp. 94-102, 

Social Panaceas ; pp. 383-90, The Possible Collapse of Civilization ; 

and pp. 397-415, Some Possible Discoveries). 



PART III 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION 



CHAPTER XXIII 
EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 

INTERPRETATIONS OE EXPERIENCE 

EVERY well informed person possesses a substantial number of fairly 
definite conceptions of what constitutes a socially efficient family, 
village, city, political party, church, corporation, or social set. We readily 
recognize certain social accidents or diseases, like famine, war, divorce, 
defalcation, falsehood, idleness, and vice, which impair or disrupt small 
or large social groups, hurt some or all of the individual members of them, 
and make for general unhappiness. All persons of good will now aspire 
after certain well recognized means of social well-being, such as indus- 
triousness, education, good weather, peace, community orderliness, right 
religiousness, friendly cooperation, and the like. Obviously, all that which 
we call education is one of the means of this social efficiency. It is a 
kind of basic means, since, rightly administered, it ought to prepare 
individuals to contribute to social efficiency along many or all other lines. 

1. What are some of the factors that enable a family of father, mother, and 
four children from five to twelve years of age to realize the maximum of well- 
being ? Separately consider : the moral fidelity of parents to each other ; the 
health of the mother; the industriousness and thrift of the father; the peace- 
fulness and order of their neighborhood; the ambitions of parents for the 
future well-being of their children. As respects which of the foregoing quali- 
ties are uneducated or illiterate parents less likely to be good parents than 
those who have an elementary school education? What are some of the 
recently developed purposes in school education designed to promote "family 
group efficiency"? 

2. Recall the conditions surrounding and affecting the general well-being of 
the peoples of a small nation — for example, Portugal or Holland. Separately 
consider the relative importance of these factors in their well-being : the 
natural resources — soil, mines, harbors, water power ; the order-producing gov- 
ernment; general literacy; prevalence of vocational or technical knowledge 
and skill; the kinds and degrees of the religiousness of the peoples; a variety 
of domestic customs. To which of these factors of social efficiency does their 
education now greatly contribute? To which others could a better system 
of education probably contribute in important measure ? 

3. It is alleged that a great deal of valuable time, cooperative spirit, and 
good workmanship are now lost through lockouts and strikes in American 

295 



296 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

mines, factories, and transport systems — in other words, that the social effi- 
ciency of the whole people is greatly reduced because of these conflicts. Does 
it seem to you that more or better education could reduce this waste ? At 
what ages could such education probably best be given? In what schools? 
By means of what kinds of courses? By what methods? 

4. Do the conditions of our general social well-being seem to you to require 
that in the school education of our youth between the ages of nine and 
fourteen we should expend much more effort, science, and wealth than has 
heretofore been given, on better education of (i) all, or (2) certain (speci- 
fied) case-groups toward the objectives of: oral reading; performance abili- 
ties in compound interest, true discount, and cube root; performance abilities 
in freehand drawing; reading of Spanish; piano playing; sustained oral com- 
position or "speaking" before audiences; nature study; sex hygiene; vocal 
music (boys) ; vocal music (girls) ; handwriting; constructive work with clay; 
geographic readings; reading of newspapers; appreciation of photodrama? 
Indicate probable contributions to social efficiency of these increased efforts. 

5. Does the well-being of American society seem to you to require : 

a. That all adults shall be literate? How can the need best be met: (i) 
in the case of children born and being reared in our cities? (2) In the case 
of children born and being reared in very sparsely settled rural districts? 

(3) In the case of illiterate immigrants reaching our shores between sixteen 
and twenty-five years of age? (4) In the case of illiterate women immigrants 
reaching here after forty years of age? (5) In the case of natives of Tennes- 
see who have not learned to read by forty years of age ? 

b. That: (i) all, or (2) all men, or (3) ten per cent, of ablest men, or 

(4) two per cent, of men and women, selected with reference to possible future 
vocations, should be encouraged and aided to become proficient in general 
algebra and trigonometry? 

c. TJiat: (i) all, or (2) all who can take a secondary education, or (3) ten 
per cent, of probable high-school graduates, or (4) ten per cent, of persons 
who can probably go through college, should be encouraged and aided to 
become genuinely proficient in speaking and writing French ? 

d. That: (i) all young persons, (2) all boys, (3) all boys who can prob- 
ably take a college education, (4) ten per cent, of all boys who probably can 
not graduate from high school, should be encouraged and aided to obtain at 
public expense systematic training to journeymanship standards in the house 
carpenters' trade ? 

e. That: (i) all persons between twelve and sixteen years of age, (2) the 
exceptionally able-minded only, or (3) prospective leaders, should be required 
and aided to study those economic problems which, still largely unsettled 
and subject to much controversy, nevertheless underlie the political issues 
dividing parties in most state and national elections ? 

6. Having in mind the larger and more enduring social well-being of Ameri- 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 297 

can society, endeavor to formulate the scope and character of the social needs 
that should be met through the combined effort of all our educational agencies 
as respects producing in many, or some, people : proficient reading abilities in 
ancient Greek ; same, modern German ; moderately proficient speaking and 
writing, and very proficient reading powers in commercial Spanish ; encourage- 
ment and training toward research powers in astronomy; increased public 
support of training for military leadership. 

7. Formulate some principles that should guide educators in establishing 
ideals and imparting knowledge as to the relative values in contemporary life 
of health, wealth, progeny, and beauty. What should we impart as principles 
as to the circumstances, if any, under which a man or woman should sacri- 
fice : his own security for that of his group ; his own health for the sake of 
wealth for (a) himself, or (&) those dependent upon him; his own wealth 
for the sake of knowledge, (a) for his own satisfaction, or {b) for increase 
of the world's knowledge; wealth, health, and progeny for the sake of (o) 
his own religious salvation, or (b) for the expected salvation of others? 

EDUCATION ONE PROCESS TOWARD SOCIAL EFFICIENCY ^ 

The processes through which social efficiency is attained are, as has 
been seen, many and varied. It has been shown that some of these are 
common to other species besides man, whilst some others are virtually 
human creations. Among the latter is education. Properly defined, this 
involves so much of prevision of ends or purposes, and so much of accu- 
mulation of ancestral experience, as to make it largely an impossible thing 
for non-human species. 

Education is a more or less conscious process in all human social groups. 
It is a large factor in the social control which every group exerts over its 
younger and more plastic members. The family is, obviously, the most 
important educational agency, notwithstanding that in it most forms of 
education — in speech, manners, extension of experience with environment, 
acquisition of lore — are by-products of its other purposeful activities. 
Playground and street associations are also profoundly educative, even 
though purposes and methods here are usually so largely embedded in 
custom as to be only vaguely apprehended by the more dominating, and 
therefore the more "educating," members. 

Childhood is, obviously, a time of preparation for adult activities. The 

* Books on this general theme are numerous and varied, though seldom based on a 
formulated social economy. The reader is advised to reread chapters from Spencer, 
Education; Smith, Educational Sociology; and G. S. Hall, Youth. He should also 
consult the tables of contents of Dewey, Democracy and Education; King, Social 
Aspects of Education; and Snedden, Vocational Education. 



298 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

work of the world — its industry, defense, worship, government, research — 
must be carried on by adult men and women. But the qualities, appre- 
ciations, powers, and ideals that they bring to the performance of this 
work are in part due to the growth and learning which have been theirs 
during childhood. Hence education as a process toward social efficiency 
occupies a peculiar place — it is, in a sense, basic and conditioning, being 
in these respects like the geographic environment, the natural resources 
available, the biological inheritance, and the previously accumulated social 
inheritance, which necessarily condition all derived processes of produc- 
tion, exchange, government, worship, family organization, and the rest. 

DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATION 

Education is variously defined — and many of these definitions tend to 
be too metaphysical to be of practical service. For sociological purposes, 
adequate definitions can best be derived inductively. It is, for example, 
evident that the school is only one source of education. Education is 
effected through the home, the church, and the shop. It takes place, in 
one form or another, on playground, through attendance on theater and 
photodrama, and by means of newspapers and magazines. It can hardly 
be said that the education of any individual ceases, so long as he submits 
himself to new experiences and makes new acquaintances. Men are only 
in part educated by agencies external to themselves. Self-education is 
carried on, more or less purposively, by numberless youths and adults. 

Back of, and basic to, education is natural growth and natural learning. 
All young creatures — plant and animal — grow. All sentient creatures — 
the animals — not only grow, but they also learn; that is, the interaction 
between their instinctive natures and their environments produce habits, 
attitudes, associations, skills, and the other products which we readily 
recognize in any mature bird or mammal, and which probably are to be 
found in modified forms in fish, insects, and other members of the animal 
world. Learning — througjh experience, exercise of curiosity, and trial and 
error in pursuit of desired ends — is, therefore, a natural process. From 
the day of his entry upon life, the child proceeds to "learn his way 
about" no less than do puppies, chicks, and all untamed creatures. 

Any normal child, obviously, grows toward manhood if properly nur- 
tured — just as do plants or animals under corresponding conditions. But 
what is proper nurture? Suitable food, shelter, rest, sleep, and protection 
from dangers are easily understood factors. But the human organism 
is so constituted that it needs many things besides these. Physical play, 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 299 

companionship, satisfaction of numberless instincts of curiosity, communi- 
cation, competition, imagination, love of beauty, and the like, all seem 
necessary to the making of the full-grown man out of the child. 

Observant adults are always fascinated by the extreme activity of the 
learning processes of a normal young child. Hands, feet, eyes, mouth 
and tongue, ears, and voice are incessantly active. We say that his 
curiosity is insatiable. He is inquisitive, acquisitive, imitative. As powers 
increase he craves manipulative, tactual, and gustatory experiences. He 
wants to see and hear much, and to roam afield. He learns as naturally 
and insistently as he grows — in fact, much of his learning could be 
described as growth in numberless forms of experience and power. It 
is his nature to learn, as it is the nature of water to flow downhill, or the 
nature of plants to grow when sunshine, soil, and moisture give favoring 
conditions. 

But adults, or others having authority, can in many ways direct, arres^t 
and intensify both the growth and the learning processes. They can do 
this with full consciousness of what they desire; or they can do it in 
accordance with more or less blind customs which they accept and approve. 
And after his earliest years the individual can to a certain extent direct, 
control, and intensify his own growth and learning processes. 

How, and under what conditions, do child and adult grow best — best, 
that is, toward the kinds of manhood or womanhood that at any given 
time are conceived by .leading minds as most worth while for self and 
society? How and under what conditions do child and adult learn best — 
learn to possess those things in appreciation, habit, understanding, and 
ideal which, again, seem at any given time, to those best qualified to know, 
to be best for self as well as for others making up the social groups in 
which the individual has membership and interdependence ? Full answers 
to these questions will probably most adequately serve our needs of 
definitions of education. Any purposive control of these growth processes 
— and especially of the learning processes under them — belongs properly 
as part of education. 

Working definitions of education can, for practical sociological pur- 
poses, best be based upon these considerations. Education is not so inclu- 
sive as growth or learning; but it ought to include all purposefully con- 
trolled growth or learning — and especially all 'that which is so controlled 
toward foreseen ends. 

Training and instruction imply highly purposive control and stimulation 
of specific learning processes. Children naturally learn a great variety 
of manipulative processes ; but they must be trained in handwriting. They 



300 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

naturally acquire much experience with their environment ; but they must 
be instructed as to the chemical composition of water. 

Education is analogous to the purposive control of flowing water for 
irrigation or power. It can not create powers or faculties ; but it can 
direct, store, suppress, or specialize existing powers. Education can, there- 
fore, be directed toward hurtful or beneficent ends. Suppressions of the 
growth of a Chinese girl's foot or of a Christian woman's amatory instincts 
or of a youth's scientific curiosity are all forms of education in this broad 
sense. The child so situated that he can learn only the language of his 
parents has already had his learning powers "canalized" toward certain 
serviceable ends by his social environments. 

The purposiveness of education, in any of its numberless processes, 
presents real difficulties of sociological analysis, since there may be many 
procedures that are socially purposive, even when the individual is not 
aware of the actual purpose. We sometimes say that instinctive action on 
the part of individuals is purposive, even though the individual is not 
aware of the purposes served. In somewhat similar ways, societies often 
possess customs and institutional procedures which, due to long selection 
and survival of the best, have become very purposive, even though no 
individual may now be able to give explicit formulation to such actual 
purpose. Social science seeks, of course, to translate blind or unconscious 
purpose into enlightened and conscious purpose, as far as practicable. 

A large part of all education, therefore, is administered, as it were, by 
persons who are only very slightly conscious of what they are doing — 
they are simply obeying customs that have become well established through 
a succession of generations. The child growing up in a Chinese family 
acquires a host of manners, words, tastes, behefs, and ideals that are very 
different from those acquired by a child in an English family. But the 
results approved by each family are those that have over a series of gen- 
erations been found good — and their transmission from old to young has 
become socially purposive, even though individual teachers are only 
vaguely aware of what they are doing, or why. 

Education, then, includes all controls of growth and learning processes 
toward ends approved by persons having power and authority to exercise 
such control. We can conveniently differentiate kinds of education accord- 
ing to the agencies controlling it — as home, church, school, shop, play- 
ground, press, stage, police power, and library education. Or we can 
classify its numerous objectives — as linguistic, military, health, vocational, 
civic, cultural, or religious. We can profitably distinguish the direct educa- 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 301 

tion given by a school or other agency having education as its primary 
purpose, from by-education (or by-product education) given by an 
agency that has other primary purposes than education — shop, church, 
home, club, and the like. 

In the sense here taken, then, education is a process almost wholly 
peculiar to human beings. Quite possibly very elemental parallels can 
be discovered in the means by which young chicks learn from their mothers 
not to be afraid of the house cat, or by which young bears learn to be 
desperately afraid of human odors. The obvious fact is that man's 
ability to accumulate and transmit a "social inheritance" of knowledge, 
skills, customs, likings, and beliefs constitutes the foundations of educa- 
tion; and that certain physiological qualities which evolutionary processes 
have given rise to — enlarged brain, vocal organs, prolonged infancy, among 
others — make possible for man kinds and degrees of education impossible 
for animals, even under man's tutelage. 

We possess, of course, little accurate knowledge of education among 
prehistoric men. But useful inferences can be drawn from observations 
of social groups still reproducing primitive conditions — of which families 
in our midst, as well as those of still savage groups, provide numerous 
examples. The mother has always been the chief educator of the very 
young. The mother's brothers, or, under established patronymic family 
conditions, the father, added certain forms of masculine control. Nearly 
everywhere in primitive life some sort of initiation signalizes the accept- 
ance of the adolescent boy into companies carrying on men's work. Prob- 
ably there generally developed in the small "hordes" or clans of paleolithic 
times, besides fighting and hunting chiefs, leaders who were deemed wise 
in magic and lore, and by whom much of the more obscure parts of the 
social inheritance were transmitted. Until writing was developed into 
printing, oral communication was doubtless the chief means of trans- 
mitting knowledge, and the arts had to be learned through imitation. 

SOME LIMITATIONS OF EDUCATION 

A perfect system of education at the service of societies in any par- 
ticular stage of their evolution can be conceived as that which would 
assure to each new individual the maximum of those forms of growth and 
learning which would enable him in optimum measure to realize all possible 
"goods" or values for himself and for his social groups. Education cer- 
tainly can not be expected to create new powers, invent new appliances, or 



302 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

discover new knowledge. But, ideally, it should equip each new member 
of society with all the powers and knowledge then known, and which can 
serve his ends, immediate and remote, individual and social. 

The first limitation to education as a means of social efficiency is found 
ill the social inheritance itself. Instruction in hygiene in the eighteenth 
century could not have helped people much in the prevention of the 
scourge of malaria, since the science of medicine did not then know how 
to prevent malaria. Education in Europe of the thirteenth century could 
not have transmitted knowledge of the construction of dynamos, nor of 
typewriting, nor of Protestantism, nor of the ideals of modern democracy, 
for obvious reasons. The best education of to-day can only transmit those 
means of social efficiency which have thus far been discovered and "stored" 
in transmissible form — and this applies, certainly, no less to political 
ideals, esthetic appreciations, and religious sentiments than to technical 
knowledge and mechanical process. 

The second limitation appears to be found in the educabilities of human 
beings themselves. We readily acknowledge that men come into the 
world severely limited as to potential body size and strength. Apparently 
we must acknowledge similar Hmitations to mental able-mindedness, and 
perhaps to moral possibilities. All that is now known of mathematics, 
astronomy, or biology is probably beyond the "learning powers" of any 
but rare and gifted persons. The highest known forms of the arts of 
painting, writing, singing, and dancing can be reproduced or relearned by 
but a few. 

But social groups are composed largely of individuals who do not 
greatly vary from the average as respects abilities of any specific kind 
that we choose to designate. Some men can readily learn several languages, 
but most men find it enough of labor to learn to use one fairly well. Thd 
"rank and file" of men, at least under methods of education now known, 
seem able to learn profitably only limited amounts of scientific knowledge, 
technical skill, or social ideals. 

In part, these limitations are doubtless due to our imperfect methods 
of education — which constitute, therefore, the third limitation on education 
as a means of social efficiency. It is to be expected that methods of 
education will continue to improve, as will methods of governing nations, 
forecasting weather, or transport. . The school as a specialized agency of 
education seems to have evolved only in recent centuries. Now its varieties 
are legion, and in all there is being prosecuted a steady search for improved 
methods. New schools are created as soon as new needs sufficiently 
momentous and well defined to justify such action are revealed. Some- 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 303 

times, too, it is discovered that imgroved processes can be applied to the 
by-education of home, shop, church, photodrama, or pohce powers. 

A fourth Hmitation is found in the mechanics of organizing and trans- 
mitting the social inheritance which education must use. The teaching of 
mathematics to children using only the Roman notation was certainly a 
laborious and time-consuming process. The unphonetic spelling of 
English and French multiplies the difficulties of children learning to write 
those languages. The Chinese now hope so to reform their system of 
writing as to reduce to- manageable proportions the heretofore stupendous 
and cruel task of learning to read and write their literary language, which 
requires three years more than with us. The handwriting of English is 
still a task for all learners, perhaps yet to be simplified by some form of 
typewriter adapted to schools. 

A fifth limitation is found in the restricted "functional values" of certain 
kinds of products of education. The multiplication of books since the 
invention of printing has simplified those kinds of transmission of infor- 
mation or knowledge which we conveniently call "academic instruction." 
But the possession of such knowledge by an individual may or may not 
result in approved action or behavior. Knowledge is an essential means 
to intelligent action, but is in itself no guaranty of such action. Hence 
modern education seeks increasingly to discover means and methods of 
producing motives, dispositions, and sustained powers for right action, 
thus entailing extensive changes in historically developed methods of 
"academic pedagogy." 

Here are encountered certain .problems, later to be analyzed, of differ- 
entiating between relatively "natural" and relatively "artificial" forms of 
learning. Judging by experience, it seems relatively "natural" for a six- 
year-old boy to learn to throw a stone, climb a tree, or imitate profanity. 
It is relatively "artificial" for him to learn to write with a pen, multiply, 
or do routine physical work. Probably in all young people desires for 
"natural" learning always compete strongly with externally imposed obliga- 
tions for artificial learning. Dispositions, even abilities, to respond to 
these obligations have their limits. 

THE INCIDENCE OF EDUCATION IN SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 

The factors in social efficiency, as previously shown, are practically 
numberless. The possible contributions of education to social efficiency 
are likewise beyond ordinary computation. It is easy to describe hundreds, 
if not thousands, of currently approved specific purposes of education for 



304 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

some or all individuals — to describe them qualitatively, that is. It is 
administratively impracticable, as yet, to determine satisfactory quantita^ 
tive measures or degrees of such specific forms of education — except in 
a few rare instances like those determining the "content" of spelling or 
handwriting. This is partly because of our inabilities to establish relative 
values for the various social "goods." We can not say how much 
"knowledge for its own sake" schools should seek to "bestow" on specified 
classes of learners, because sociology gives us, as yet, no means of ascer- 
taining the relative worth of such knowledge in comparison with religious- 
ness, economic success, fellowship, and the other social values which can 
be realized only through time and effort. 

Certain distinctions of educational purpose can, however, even now 
conveniently be made. There are, in the first place, certain forms of 
education that are primarily designed to specialize and increase those 
desires for good, on the assumption that, for other reasons, the exercise 
of these powers will be along lines consistent with the larger and more 
enduring forms of social efficiency. Every man naturally learns some 
arts of self-defense; education can teach him the use of more efifective 
weapons or processes than he would otherwise master. Every man must 
work to live; specific forms of education can assure him greater product 
with less labor. Every child and man seeks to gratify intellectual curiosity 
and esthetic interest; education can increase the possibilities and simplify 
the methods of obtaining such gratifications. Even those varieties of 
religious education designed to assure the salvation of the soul may be 
given and received primarily with the happiness of the individual alone 
as the controlling purpose. 

Social purposes, however, control, implicitly or explicitly, in most forms 
of public or other "large-group" education. That is, it is the educated 
man's usefulness to his fellows in family, village, economic union, party, 
or state that finally justifies such education. The man who is healthier, 
wealthier, or wiser because of education may himself get much satisfac- 
tion from these forms of well-being; but no less he also gives, or is 
expected to give, satisfactions to others likewise because of these 
advantages. Education toward literacy, powers of arithmetical calcula- 
tion, or vocational proficiency are probably often conceived by parents as 
contributing directly to the well-being of their children; but statesmen 
and other far-sighted ones expect that the literacy and the other attain- 
ments of individuals will also make of these better soldiers, citizens, 
producers, exemplars, and parents for the social groups in which they 
have membership. 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 305 

Such social incidence of individual education can not, of course, always 
be guaranteed. A man trained to use a sword, a pen, or even a sacred 
book, may use his training against his friends, his fellow citizens, or the 
state. Not a few men use their vocational powers to exploit their economic 
fellows, just as others use their physical health and strength in predatory 
activities. It must often happen, too, that the esthete or other self- 
centered person seeks to monopolize to himself in largest possible measure 
the gratifications due to his powers, as increased and specialized by educa- 
tion. There may be miserliness of knowledge, security, fellowship, or even 
of religion, as well as of economic and esthetic satisfactions. 

Hence the modern world, confronted by steady multiplication of 
complex problems of making large social groups efficient, seeks to produce 
varieties of education that will directly "socialize" men — that is, adapt 
them, through habituation, appreciation, ideal, and insight, to effective 
membership in complex and imperfectly understood groupings. Moral 
education has always been one form of social education, obviously. But 
moral education is largely an affair of small groups — family and neighbor- 
hood, and elemental face-to-face relationships of buyer and seller, employer 
and laborer. Religious education, too, is an ancient and powerful form 
of social education. But, effective as it has been in its purer forms, it 
has apparently but slightly prepared men for adjustment to modern social 
interrelationships on the gigantic scales entailed by contemporary social 
evolution. Here civic education, as the term is now understood, offers 
very large promise for the future. It must be scientific and democratic — 
a difficult combination for pedagogy. But on it rests the large socializa- 
tion of men. 

The aims of these larger forms of socializing education are still neces- 
sarily nebulous — they are reflected in aspirations rather than in plans. 
And the methods of such education may well prove elusive and difficult, 
even when objectives shall have been more clearly defined than they are 
at present. Nevertheless, only through civic education will it be practicable 
for men to conserve and consolidate the gains already made through civili- 
zations, in so far as that depends on "large-group" cooperations and co- 
ordinations. 

THE SCOPE OF EDUCATION TOWARD SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 

Education has already been defined as including all purposive controls, 
toward approved ends, of growth and learning processes. It is important 
to grasp the inclusiveness and implications of that definition. Only a 



3o6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

part, — and as respects some objectives a small part — of such education 
can or should be effected through schools. External agencies must regulate 
and enforce it for children, but for adults it must be largely self-directed. 
Self-education now plays an immense part in the civic, vocational, and 
cultural education of all Americans between the ages of twenty-one and 
sixty. Newspapers, books, experience, fellowship contact, reflection, are 
but a few of the means of such self-directed and self-enforced education. 
Agencies of collective action — the state, churches, municipalities, clubs, 
associations, schools, parties, corporations — may facilitate and encourage 
such education, but the adult free individual takes it or leaves it under 
little external compulsion. 

From these considerations emerges a principle that must be given a 
variety of concrete applications later. Schools are agencies whose primary 
purposes are education. They are necessarily expensive. Their educa- 
tional offerings must, therefore, be far more effective in purpose and 
method than either the by-education of other agencies influencing child- 
hood, or the self-education of later years. In general, it is not profitable 
that schools should undertake specific forms of education that are reason- 
ably well accomplished along these other lines. Some hygienic practices 
must be taught by the school, if they are to be learned at all ; but a large 
part of every-day hygiene is, and will long continue to be, best taught 
in the home or on the playground. Some forms of moral attitude, insight, 
and ideal, schools must teach; but a much larger proportion can be much 
more effectively taught in home, church, shop, and street. The school can 
and should teach the individual to read, and how to find good reading; 
it may even find ways of inspiring him to want long to continue to do 
good reading. But it should not, even if it could, seek to direct and control 
such reading into mature years. 

In other words, there are many kinds of educational agencies, of which 
only one type makes education its principal business. In most cases the 
functions of schools are, therefore, in greater or less degree residual, 
corrective, or initiatory — ^^and if any particular school can not discover in 
just what respects its functions are thus complementary to those of other 
agencies, its contributions to social efficiency will be uneconomical and 
probably ineffective. 

The home teaches the child the vernacular without expense to society, or 
serious effort on its own part. It is a proper function of the school to 
correct deficiencies of speech produced by family education. But, com- 
monly, the home can not well teach handwriting — hence the school has 
primary responsibilities for insuring mastery of this useful art. Many 



EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 307 

vocations are now well learned on the basis of apprenticeship, or even the 
imitative methods of "pick-up" vocational education. But where such 
by-education no longer suffices — as seems probably to be the case in an 
increasing number of vocations — special schools will be required to teach 
all, or some part of, such vocations. 

These illustrations could be multiplied. Their purport is obscured in 
not a little contemporary discussion of school education. Educators are 
naturally prone to ignore, to undervalue, or even to disparage extra-school 
and post-school education. Such, attitudes will necessarily entail distorted 
conceptions of purposes, scope, method, and values of school education. 
Medicine once conceived its chief functions as healing. Now it best serves 
society by such preventions as render healing unnecessary. Good states- 
manship finds its highest rewards, not in wars to execute, but in peace 
continued. The future will show us many forms of education in which 
the highest service of teachers will be rendered by planting certain seeds 
and leaving the plant to grow. A wiser generation than ours will probably 
find it desirable to bring small children fewer days and fewer hours into 
school rooms than we now do in cities, and to cooperate in making home, 
street, and play-place more educative. The good vocational school of 
the future will' almost* certainly not provide its own facilities for produc- 
tive work whilst factories, farms, shops, homes, and transport are actively 
at work in their midst. 

Not only must the school ascertain its proper residual functions in 
certain fields of education. It must learn to discriminate endlessly among 
individuals, even as respects the exercise of its primary functions. High 
schools in American suburbs are now often painfully drilling certain pupils 
in English literature who already surpass their teachers in genuine literary 
appreciations. Without any more civic education than their home sur- 
roundings give them, certain proportions of our high-school and college 
students are destined to go as far as necessary toward efficient citizenship. 
In not a few cases courses in physical training in schools and colleges 
suggest the folly of seeking to gild gold or to paint the lily. 

Collective responsibility for integral and sufficient education is, ob- 
viously, destined to increase.^ As the collective sense of need becomes 
better defined and more articulate, — these things being dependent upon 
clearer conceptions of educational objectives than we yet possess, — it will 
be possible to determine and evaluate educational contributions from non- 
school sources, and thus ascertain with more precision than is now prac- 
ticable the desirable and practicable functions of schools. It may even 
''See E. P. Cubberley, Changing Conceptions of ^Education. 



3o8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

prove practicable, at no material increase of social outlay, greatly to 
increase the educational values of such agencies as newspapers, moving 
pictures, municipal play-places, summer homes, young people's religious 
associations, public libraries, juvenile courts, and the minor vocational 
activities of young people in homes. The irrigator has often found it 
possible, by some slight diversion of a flowing stream, to convey water 
to large tracts of land. Probably in numberless directions the "natural" 
agencies of growth and learning can be made educative to degrees not 
now appreciated at all. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Apdams, Jane. Democracy and Social Ethics (Ch. 6, Educational 
Methods). 

Carlton, F. T. Education and Industrial Evolution (Ch. 2-4). 

Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 25). 

FouiLLEE, A. Education from a National Standpoint (Ch. i. Powers of 
Education). 

Henderson, C. H. Education and the Larger Life (Ch. i, 2). 

MooRE, E. C. What Is Education? 

Sadler, M. E. Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere. 

Spencer, H. Social Statics (pp. 156-88, National Education). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 19, Education and History). 

Swift, E. J. Mind in the Making (Ch. 7, The Racial Brain and Educa- 
tion). 

Ward, L. F. Dynamic Sociology (Ch. 14, Education). 

Ware, F. Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. 

YouMANS, A. Culture Demanded by Modern Life. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— GROWTH, PLAY, 

AND WORK 

A. "NATURAL" VS. "ARTIFICIAL" EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THERE are thousands of specific kinds of learning, and hundreds of 
kinds of education. The experience of every person abounds in 
examples. Very young children are taught in the household to wash and 
dress themselves, keep their playthings "put away," be courteous to 
visitors, retire at regular hours, use a fork properly, and refrain from 
injuring furniture or books. Supplementing their purely imitative learn- 
ing, it is necessary from time to time to teach them the correct pronuncia- 
tions of certain words, avoidance of erroneous language constructions, 
lowering of the voice in company, and respectful attitudes toward the 
aged. 

In the play-place the boy is taught a variety of games, modes of be- 
havior, attitudes toward the police, sources of danger, and avenues of 
surreptitious pleasure. Instinctive tendencies to imitate, emulate, and, in 
last resorts, to fight, keep him spurred up to a considerable tension during 
the processes of education carried on by play fellows. Every play-place 
and playing group possesses its own slang, epithets, half-formulated codes, 
beliefs, prejudices, and standards. These are disseminated and fixed by 
processes that blend growth and education. 

The growing child under normal conditions learns much from elders 
other than parents. On farm, seashore, and hunting ground, the boy 
follows eagerly after adults, admiring their powers, sharing in the simple 
phases of their employments, copying their speech, and providing an eager 
audience for story, jest, and profanity. In shop and factory, and on 
railroad and street, he is usually excluded from any significant participa- 
tion in adult occupations, — generally to his loss, be it said, — but neverthe- 
less he acquires what he can of vital experience by using eyes, ears, and 
imagination. For good or ill, his environment is always more or less 
educative. 

It is true, in a sense, that a child's growth tendencies, instincts toward 
the acquisition of experience, and will to do what he sees others doing, 
tend to spread out in every direction opened by his environment; and 
that parents, other elders, and play fellows operate as more or less constant 
checks upon these activities, thus imposing boundaries, regulations, and 
necessary adjustments. Much early education is thus necessarily negative, 

309 



310 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

restrictive, prohibitive. It seeks to turn anarchistic impulses toward profit- 
able channels. It guides, adjusts, perhaps suppresses. 

School education under modern conditions claims the growing and 
learning child for perhaps one hundred and fifty or two hundred days 
a year. The school has historically been created to attend only to certain 
parts of education. Because the home is often ineffective in teaching 
reading, or the catechism, or arithmetic, or Latin, the school is designated 
to assume these tasks. Hence are differentiated the objectives of school 
education — in common school, Sunday school, dancing school, trade 
school, Latin grammar school, military school, and the like. 

Every informed person is at least dimly aware of the multiplication of 
the specific purposes of school education in recent years. We dift'erentiate 
a thousand useful ends or purposes of education in schools, from kinder- 
garten to university. We perceive the helpful or harmful effects of 
non-school education in the home, on the playground, in the club, at work. 
Because of this diversity of offerings, we moderns find ourselves inces- 
santly forced to contemplate choices of educational values. Questions like 
these constantly arise, even in homes : 

1. Is it important that children under six should attend kindergarten rather 
than play around their own homes? 

2. Are large amounts of physical play essential to the growth of children? 
What kinds are best? Will certain kinds of physical work probably give 
equally good results? 

3. Is it well for children to travel, as a means of education? To foreign 
lands? At what ages is such experience most valuable? Travel under what 
conditions? 

4. Is it important that children be taught dancing? What kinds? At what 
ages? For what reasons? 

5. If time permits, does it seem important that all children learn to use 
certain common tools and machines ? Separately consider : carpenters' tools, 
gardeners' tools, miners' tools, printers' tools and machines, fishermen's boats 
and implements, cattle-drovers' horses and mechanisms, house-painters' tools, 
implements of cookery, tailors' tools. 

6. Is it important that all persons be educated to "like" good music? Is this 
a practicable objective? Do people have to be educated to appreciate the pho- 
todrama ? Why ? 

7. Is it important that all, or some, high-school youths be offered or required 
to take military training? Why? 

8. Should every boy learn a trade? Take part in athletic sports? 

NATURAL vs. DIRECTED GROWTH 

A child is born into the world to-day. His proper care, development, 
and education become at once objects of the solicitude and effort of 



THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 311 

various social agencies — chiefly, at first, his family in direct ways, and 
the state in certain forms of general oversight. As he matures, other 
agencies are expected to cooperate — schools, churches, play fellows, 
employers, police power, stage, press, clubs. Indirectly, physicians, toy- 
makers, merchants, house-builders, and numberless others will make con- 
tributions to the various forms of care, growth, experience, instruction, and 
training that will combine to "make a man of him." 

Our imagination can readily follow this child until he becomes twenty- 
five years of age. What kind of man do those people of to-day who 
can most afi^ect his progress want him to become ? As they come to know 
better his hereditary qualities — his original nature — what will they find 
it practicable to expect him to become? 

Only from some such starting point as here suggested can we dififerenti- 
ate and formulate the desirable and practicable objectives of education. 

The growth processes — are they part of education? They are innu- 
merable, ranging from those imperative kinds of bodily growth that are 
assured if only protection, food, rest, and shelter are provided for the 
plastic organism, to those very subtle forms of growth in esthetic and 
religious appreciation which take place only in the presence of delicately 
adjusted stimuli. It has become increasingly the accepted responsibility 
of several types of schools to minister to various growth or develop- 
mental processes — physical growth through play, social growth through 
"school led" cooperations, esthetic growth through provision of 
"artistic" environments, and growth of imagination through story and 
drama. 

But schools are hardly suitable agencies to control, or even indirectly 
to affect, the great majority of growth processes. From birth to four 
years of age, the child grows rapidly in size, in strength and mobility 
of body, in speech, in miscellaneous experience, in social qualities, and 
in all forms of general knowledge. Even when, at ten years of age, he 
comes directly under the charge of schools for some thousand hours 
each year, he still spends more than seven thousand hours yearly with 
parents, play fellows, or alone in a non-school environment, during all 
of which numberless forms of growth are always active. Even when, 
at twenty years of age, he has ceased to live at home for nine months 
in the year, and comes under the direct intellectual control of college 
teachers for possible one thousand hours each year, nevertheless large pro- 
portions of his physical, linguistic, intellectual, and especially of his social 
and esthetic, growth tak^ place under conditions with which schools may 
have little or nothing to do. 



312 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FUNDAMENTAL DISTINCTIONS 01'' EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES ^ 

Human beings, therefore, like other Hving creatures, are born into 
the world in very "undeveloped" form, but equipped with many pressing 
"potentialities" for growth. If a child can only get some food, shelter, 
rest, freedom, and safety from dangerous animals and bacteria, it proceeds 
to grow — in all senses of the word. It "grows" in size, weight, powers of 
movement, knowledge, affections, hates, laughter, speech, and desires to 
imitate various sorts of "sensed" activities of others. We say that it 
"learns" to take food, to smile, to walk, to speak, to play with its fellows, 
to like stories, to ride a "scooter," to climb trees, to conspire with the 
"gang," to steal fruit, to hunt, to take an interest in the opposite sex. 

"Natural learning," as all of this is, should, obviously, be distinguished 
from other types. Commonly, the individual "wants" to accomplish it 
in the same insistent way that he wants food, rest, and sleep. Back of 
it all there are strong instinctive "urges," pressures, or hungers. Teach- 
ers have frequently to be reminded, not so much of the existence, as 
of the very great educational significance, of these keen natural desires 
found in all normal growing children, to "carry out" up to certain points 
the instinctive tendencies to imitate, to gratify curiosity, to seek new 
experiences, to make "trial flights" of all sorts, to seek companions, to 
compete and cooperate with these, and to follow gladly the lead of elders. 

We can best visualize the range and intensity of the processes of 
"natural learning" by imagining a small group of boys and girls with 
very lax parents, no schools, and no churches, growing up in a moun- 
tainous and forested frontier. This group would evolve as young sav- 
ages. Assuming that the elders would set them examples of living in 
houses, keeping fires, hunting game, cutting wood, brewing liquors, 
carrying on feuds, dancing, and the like, we can easily imagine what the 
children would becpme in good and bad ways, simply through imitative 
and other more or less instinctive reactions on their environment. By 
the time manhood or womanhood was reached, they would have learned 
to appreciate (to care for, dislike, love, or be contemptuous of), and to 
do, numberless things. Probably they would never have learned to "work" 
their minds — that is, to "study," to think or observe in concentrated and 
systematic fashion, or to acquire knowledge or record it in the laborious 
ways of reading and writing. 

* See D. Snedden, Sociological Determination of Educational Objectives (Ch. 2 
and 3). - 



THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 313 

From the standpoint of youthful interest and understanding, these 
"untutored" savages would have had a "perfectly glorious" time. Nearly 
all of their time they could do "what they wanted to." They could be 
ceaselessly active physically, socially, mentally, along play lines. When 
they felt like it they could eat, sleep, gossip, and, like their greatest 
American interpreter, Whitman, "loaf and invite their souls." 

"Artificial learning" comes when primitive man (or modern man, too, 
on the frontiers, whether in the natural wilderness or in the city slum) 
begins in some collective way to perceive the advantages of ordered life, 
of carefully storing the accumulations of experience, and of training 
for the difficult cultural, civic, and vocational pursuits gradually develop- 
ing. Artificial learning is as dififerent from natural learning as are the 
processes by which water is artificially controlled in ditches and pipes 
different from the "natural" behavior of uncontrolled water. In a sense, 
certainly, all learning is "natural," just as the domestication of animals, 
and the making of leather, steel, houses, and statues are simply extensions 
of natural processes. What is here conveniently called "artificial learning" 
is clearly not unnatural learning. But it is planned, man-directed, and 
justified in terms of man's supposed needs. 

Artificial learning, except in some later degenerate stages, is always 
based upon conceptions of predetermined goals or ends held by parents, 
war leaders, priests, or other adult guides, consciously or as half-con- 
scious customs. Only a few of these goals or purposes have to do with 
the "present" needs or usefulness of the plastic children of youth being 
trained or instructed. Most of them are truly "projective" purposes 
— they look forward to an adult time of full activity or functioning. 

The earhest varieties of artificial learning are, obviously, only such 
sporadic modifications of natural learning as can be seen in any family 
group where social behavior, speech, or cooperative activities are involved. 
The child is allowed to "grow naturally" in his behavior, except at cer- 
tain points where, by specific direction, prohibition, or training, he is 
"taught" certain manners. He "grows" in speech, but occasionally is 
forbidden to use an unseemly word or is forced to correct a badlv formed 
expression. He is first allowed freedom in "helping" in domestic occu- 
pations, as his purely imitative nature suggests, and then he is forced to 
perform certain relatively irksome tasks, or to acquire better skills. 

Naturally, the first schools — meaning thereby any agencies having 
education as a conscious primary function — were designed wholly to 
promote "artificial learning." For thousands of years, doubtless, the only 
real schools were those which trained male youth in the arts of war- 



314 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

fare, since it was in these that men were most insistently competitive, 
and it was here that the "artificial" so early succeeded to "natural" in 
means of combat. For all the ordinary activities of life the processes 
of instinctive imitation, supplemented by moderate amounts of "forcing" 
through custom, taboo, and the displeasure of elder workers, sufficed. 

When the "eras of conquest," accompanied by government of the sub- 
jugated, began, it was obviously necessary that the sons of the conquerors 
should be trained for "government," as well as for fighting and royal 
sports. The educational procedures of all early societies whose records 
are preserved are to be interpreted in the light of the conscious need of 
"training" young aristocrats for their important places. Tutors of vari- 
ous kinds are employed to train toward ceremonial, law-giving, and diplo- 
macy as well as in horseback riding, combat, and hunting. 

When the arts of reading and writing come to be considered socially 
important for any class, — clerics, aristocrats, business leaders, the citizens 
of a democracy, — an era of artificial learning sets in at its best — and 
worst. We can sympathize somewhat with the prospective count or 
knight sent from home at seven years of age to learn the "arts of chivalry" 
as page in the castle of a friendly ruler threescore of miles away. But 
real "child labor" began when small children were set laboriously to 
learn to read and to write a language that was often not the vernacular, 
or was at best a much differentiated form of it. The contemporary ex- 
ample of small Chinese children toilfully striving to read and to write the 
complex symbols of a language which to most of them is far removed 
from the family's vernacular seems best to indicate what was probably 
almost everywhere until recently the story of schooling toward "literacy." 

"Schools" as agencies of artificial education have, of course, Hke all 
other human agencies evolved through processes of "trial and error," 
been in numerous instances and over long periods inefifective, more or 
less tyrannical, cruel, corrupt, and destructive. Like religion, medicine, 
war, government, marriage, and mechanical industry, they have been 
essentially means in human evolution, even though at times and places 
they probably did more harm than good. School education, like theocratic 
religion, oligarchic government, bureaucratic medicine, and militarism, 
can readily become a means of stifling natural growth, of "taking all 
the joy out of life." But civilized societies can not dispense with schools 
in general on that account, any more than they can dispense with medicine, 
defensive war, politics, or machine production because of the abuses that 
have crept in, and that may still await intelligent correction. 

The combination of natural and artificial learning under school aus- 



THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 315 

pices is a thought of only yesterday, historically speaking.^ Men of 
sympathetic nature doubtless long ago pitied children early chained in 
the treadmills of formal schooling, just as the hearty American pities the 
dogs harnessed to the heavy carts of Flanders. But usually they could 
do nothing about it. Could these children become fully effective and 
happy men and women without this painful preparation in childhood? 
"There is no royal road to geometry" ; neither was there to ability to 
write, to read "writing," or, later, to read printing. 

In spite of it all, most of the children survived, and many of them 
developed into strong men and women. Of course they got their "natural" 
education outside of school days and school hours. Except in a few 
orphanages, shops where apprentices "lived in," and some very perfect 
boarding schools (by current standards), it seems probable that most 
children, even during those centuries from the thirteenth to the eighteenth 
when society was striving desperately in so many ways to become "civil- 
ized," did get many opportunities to play vigorously in "big muscle" ways, 
to satisfy their instinctive curiosities, sociabilities, and loyalties, and to try 
their native ingenuities in endlessly manipulating the human and material 
things around them. They insisted on obtaining "developmental experi- 
ence." In a social environment afflicted by many taboos, conventions, 
and devotions to the "serious life," naturally the children, and especially 
the youth, very often ran afoul of the regulations and the expecta- 
tions of their elders. Naturally, too, there existed something of an armed 
truce, if not an only half-suppressed warfare between children seeking 
natural expression, and parents, teachers, priests, and the other staid 
elders of every community. The Puritan thought that the play impulse 
was an infection from below. It seemed easy to some of our forebears 
to believe that the "original nature" of man is altogether toward sin. 

B. WORK-LEVEL AND PLAY-LEVEL EDUCATION^ 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

A recent writer. Professor Bobbitt of Chicago University, has elab- 
orated distinctions between "play-level" and "work-level" education. 
These distinctions should prove of much assistance to educators in inter- 
preting and adjusting the various objectives of modern education. Chil- 
dren, youths, and adults learn endlessly through play ; but not all kinds 
of play are equally educative in terms of contemporary social needs. 
Hence education can make choices, not only as between the natural learn- 

^ Compare J. Dewey, School and Society. 

'A valuable analysis is found in F. Bobbitt, The Curriculum (Ch. 1-3). 



3i6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ing of play and the artificial learning of work, but also as between differ- 
ent kinds of natural or "play-level" learning. 

To this end, we need far more adequate understanding than we yet 
possess of the fundamental distinctions between play and work. Some 
naive idealists try to pretend to themselves that all work should or could 
be carried on in the play spirit. That is true of a few kinds of work, 
certainly. It is also true that long habituation to certain kinds of work 
produces an addiction to it that may be hard to distinguish from the de- 
votions of play. But the common experience of mankind generally and 
persistently makes distinctions of the most real sort between play and 
work. Certainly these can and do enter into all school activities. The 
experience of each one of us is, after all, a prolific source of possible 
and very genuine interpretations here. 

1. What are some essential differences between play and work? To what 
extent do children under six "instinctively" play ? Instinctively work ? Make 
same distinctions for other age levels among civilized man, at ages six to 
ten, eleven to fifteen, sixteen to twenty-one, twenty-one to thirty, etc. Same, 
among savages. Distinguish for mental and for physical work. 

Can children of ages six to ten be taught "to work"? Mentally? Physi- 
cally? Are children of these ages frequently held "to work"? For what 
periods, usually? Repeat analysis for the higher age groups. 

Are substantial amounts of physical work supposed to be "good" for ages 
three to six, six to ten? Higher age levels? Why? Is "mental" work sup- 
posed to be good for children of these age levels? Why? 

2. What are some types of learning that seem usually to take place "nat- 
uralistically" — in the play spirit ? Separately consider vernacular speech, 
domestic habits, legend (from stories told), primitive arts, sports, bodily 
skills, and others. What are some forms of learning that seem usually to 
require "hard work" ? Separately consider : acquisition of an alien language 
in maturity ; mastery of mathematics ; learning a trade or profession well ; 
learning an art well — painting, piano playing, fiction writing, and others. 

3. What are the usual characteristics of play as to : dependence upon in- 
stinctive desires or appetites ; necessity for continuity, order, exclusion of 
competing stimuli ; outcome in utilities — products, services ; resulting fatigues ? 
Contrast similar factors iri work. 

What kinds of "productive activity" are often carried on in the play spirit? 
Consider separately: wheat growing; acting; home-making for normal family; 
factory shoemaking; writing of fiction; elementary school teaching. Repeat 
analysis, separately considering workers of: (a) exceptionally good ability 
and training; (b) those of only average powers; and (c) the markedly in- 
ferior in that field. 

Is toil a species of work? Drudgery? What are the peculiar qualities 
of these species ? Is work usually done under "compulsion" ? What kinds — 



(t 



THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 317 

the compulsions of personal coercion (slavery, prisoners), economic need, 
ambition for distinction and power through the results, inherent interest in 
the activity itself? 

4. Would you consider it desirable to divide all activities under high-school 
control or influence — studies, discipline, volunteer performances — into two 
categories, according to purposes to be realized — the "projective" and "de- 
velopmental"? (Assume that "projective ends" are values chiefly to be real- 
ized in specific form in adult life; that "developmental results" consist of 
immediate "high-grade" satisfactions through present activities and possibly 
some obscure values toward needs of later life). 

In which category would usually be placed : reading powers in French ; pre- 
engineering trigonometry ; athletics ; current events ; school dances ; stenog- 
raphy, learned as a vocation; economic problems; concerts heard; gardening, 
for city boys; a trade; college preparatory Latin? 

Would it seem desirable or expedient to alter the aims now often held 
for: English literature; oral expression; general science; "applied art"; 
medieval history; collective or chorus music? 

5. Do you deem it advisable to (a) require, or (&) advise, pupils to take 
what for them are "hard work" studies, if the "values" of these in adult 
life are much in doubt? How will your answers vary according to avail- 
ability of probably more profitable alternatives? What have been "values" 
to you of your work in algebra, foreign language, physics? Are these pious 
faiths with you, or convictions based on knowledge? To what other studies, 
never taken, could you, as you think back, profitably have given the time 
and labor required for the algebra and others ? 

In a certain high school are a considerable number of girls and boys of 
whom it is practically certain that none will go beyond the eleventh (third 
high-school) grade. Their time in the tenth grade permits the taking of only 
one of these courses : (a) plane geometry, made difficult by heavy stress on 
"original" problems and practical applications; or (b) economic problems, 
made difficult by emphasis on concrete problems, and need of close reasoning. 
Which would you recommend, and why? 

6. Many very important, as well as some very obscure, current problems 
of educational values are involved in the proper interpretations of play, work, 
and recreation. These problems even far transcend the schools in their rami- 
fications and potential effects. 

o. Biblical writers associated work with divine displeasure. Do tropical 
peoples and normal growing children still regard "work" as a cursed thing? 
What of the attitudes of coal-miners, factory hands, tillers of the soil, hewers 
of wood and drawers of water? 

b. What are certain sociological facts as regards the work of : former 
North American Indians ; enslaved negroes ; Eskimos ; Chinese coolies ; con- 
querors of the medieval type; explorers; gold-miners or prospectors; free 



3i8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tillers of the soil in cold parts of Europe ; recent immigrants ; women of 
poor classes; writers; captains of industry; college students? 

c. What are differences between the "work" of animals in domesticated 
state (oxen, horses, camels, elephants, dogs) and their work in the natural 
state ? 

d. Do ants, squirrels, beavers, birds, work? What are essential character- 
istics as to interest, fatigue, competition, etc.? How does such work resemble 
play of children? 

e. Think of adults thirty to fifty years old in common vocations — lumbering, 
mining, tillage, factory production, table waiting, home-making, street-car 
motoring, seafaring, school teaching, bricklaying — employed for three hundred 
days yearly from eight to twelve hours daily. What are their usual conscious 
motives for pursuing work? How have their habits become so shaped as 
to make prolonged discontinuance of routine painful? What are usual features 
in their work of drudgery, toil, arduousness, painful routine? What portion 
of the work is done in play spirit? What is the usual spirit of the last hour 
of each day's work? 

Would these workers usually give up their work for leisure, if living were 
assured ? Would they give it up for other kinds of work at equal pay ? From 
what motives? 

PLAY AND WORK AS MEANS OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 

Play and work, in the varied experiences of all men, are very different 
things, although it is hard at certain points to define the essential differ- 
ences. The difficulty is increased by the fact that often, and especially 
in childhood, play is a means of growth, whilst at other times, and espe- 
cially in adult life, it is a means of recreation. 

To a large extent, play is pursued because of immediate desire, or 
pleasure in it; whilst work is done under the compulsion of need or cir- 
cumstance. Play can be terminated when desire is satisfied, but commonly 
work must be carried on long after intrinsic interest in it ceases. Play is 
rarely productive of economic utilities; whilst work is accepted primarily 
because it produces desired economic goods or security. 

To a child or man with energies fresh and interests keen, the earlier 
stages o'f any "job" of work can usually be carried on in the play spirit. 
But when such a job is followed long it becomes labor, perhaps drudgery. 
There are probably a few vocations — those of the artist, inventor, and 
naturalist may be examples — which can only be effectively pursued whilst 
the full play spirit lasts. But the bulk of the world's work in farming, 
sea-going, mining, housekeeping, teaching, and manufacturing is done by 
people who, however much they have eventually become habituated or 



THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 319 

broken to it, would be glad to change to more playlike activities if they 
were completely freed from economic necessity. 

Play and work obviously shade into each other in a twilight zone 
between the more well defined forms of each; but confusion will be 
avoided if we confine the present discussion to what every-day experience 
clearly recognizes as decisive examples of each kind. All clear-cut vari- 
eties of play are carried on with much natural interest, either in the proc- 
ess, or in some immediate outcome — including often "winning" in a 
competition; they are unproductive of economic utilities, they are largely 
unconstrained, and can be terminated when interests flag. 

Nearly all well defined forms of work derive their interest from some 
external and possibly remote source — involving even such motives as 
desires to escape punishment (slave labor), to avoid poverty in old age, 
to win in competition with rivals, or to accumulate wealth or power. 
Work commonly results in economic utilities which, consumed or ex- 
changed, give the producer the means of livelihood and other sumptuary 
satisfactions. Commonly, also, work is done under various forms of direct 
or indirect constraint which often oblige its continuance long after intrinsic 
interests have given place to feelings of fatigue and drudgery. 

Many varieties of play should be recognized in both child and adult 
life. For practical purposes it is profitable to distinguish physical from 
intellectual play, and both from social play, according to certain pre- 
dominant qualities in each, even though such distinctions are only partially 
justified by psychological considerations. Much physical, and some in- 
tellectual, play is, obviously, carried on cooperatively, and is therefore 
social in part. Probably there are forms of activity, such as card playing, 
smoking-room or tea-table gossip, or sheer unforced companionship, in 
which the growth or recreation of the more pronounced social instincts 
is the "purpose of nature." But it is also probable that the instinctive needs 
of children and adults for many and varied forms of physical and intel- 
lectual play can be satisfied in isolation nearly as well as in social groups, 
once appropriate incentives are acquired. The social stimulation of ex- 
ample, competitive performance, and group approval are important stimuli 
to play activities of all sorts ; but they are certainly not of its essence, 
any more than they are of the essence of work. 

The values of play toward growth are now generally appreciated by 
educators and parents, even though little is yet known about right stand- 
ards of kind and amount. The more sympathetic students of childhood 
are inclined to trust largely to "instinctive nature" where it seems that the 
conditions of environment are fairly normal. 



320 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bagley, W. C. The Educative Process (Ch. 1-3). 

Bode, B, T. Fundamentals of Education (Ch. 2, Educational Values). 

CuBBERLEY, E. P. Changing Conceptions of Education. 

Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems (Ch. 16, Edu- 
cation), 

Groos, K. The Play of Man. 

Hanus^ p. a Modern School (Ch, 5, The School and the Home). 

Johnson, G. E. Education by Plays and Games. 

Lee, Joseph. Play in Education (Book I, Play as Growth). 

RoBBiNS, C. L. The School as a Social Institution (Ch. 12-13, Aims of 
Courses of Study). 

Sadler, M. Continuation Schools. 

Todd, A. J. The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency (Ch. 4), 

Ward, L, F. Pure Sociology (Ch, 20, Socialization of Achievement). 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EVERY reader of this book has had prolonged experiences with schools. 
All should be able to give valuable interpretations to these ques- 
tions : 

1. Are the "educational values" of the following forms of instruction or 
training expected to be realized chiefly when learned, or in the later years 
of adult life: French, studied at ages thirteen to sixteen; spelling of difficult 
but frequently used words ; trigonometry, studied between sixteen and 
eighteen; long division, multiplication of fractions and the computing of in- 
terest, studied in intermediate grades ; the printing trade learned under ap- 
prenticeship from sixteen to twenty ? Would it be proper to apply the term 
"deferred," or "projective," values in describing the objectives of these forms 
of education? 

2. Do these activities have educational values — and are such values found 
chiefly "at the time," or in later years: physical play (all ages); games like 
tops, kites, marbles ; fairy stories ; attractive fiction or accounts of travel, read 
at ages twelve to sixteen ; dancing, ages fourteen to eighteen ; gardening, wire- 
less, printing, woodworking, done voluntarily, and in amateur spirit, at ages 
twelve to sixteen? 

3. Is there such a thing as "intellectual work"? What are its character- 
istics? Do we expect it of kindergarten pupils? High-school pupils? Why 
is it more appropriate to the first than to the second group of "studies" listed 
above ? 

4. Do we ever "learn" through intellectual play? What are the charac- 
teristics of intellectual play ? Distinguish, as to methods and accompanying 
conditions, between your intellectual work and play. At your age is your 
intellectual play educative, or only recreative? Are the methods by which 
all people learn : the early stages of vernacular ; to play childish games ; to 
enjoy stories and whatever is obtained from the moving pictures, parades, 
circuses, etc. ; the local geography of the summer camp — best described as 
"play" or "work" methods? 

5. In which one of each of these pairs of possible school offerings is "free- 
dom of election," "flexibility of method," the "spirit of the play method," and 
a variety of interesting projects the more practicable: story reading (of in- 

321 



322 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

teresting kinds) or handwriting — in the lower grades; Latin or gardening, at 
ages fourteen to sixteen; percentage arithmetic or travel geography, in the 
upper grades ; reading of musical notation or "appreciation of music" ; physical 
sports or the learning of a trade, like stenography or tinsmithing, at ages 
sixteen to eighteen? 

6. For convenience, we may designa'^e as "projective," A class or alpha 
class, all those specific forms of trail ;: or instruction which are taught 
primarily for the sake of their usefulness . i later life ; and as "developmental," 
B class or beta class, all those activities • forms of learning which seem to 
have large immediate 'import, ice in th,. physical, social, intellectual, and 
esthetic development of the child. In which class would you place each of 
these: long division, third or fourth grade; a children's party; winter sports 
with sleds (ages seven to twelve); a high-school dance; first-year (high- 
school) algebra; "hard" spelling, third to fifth grade; learning the ver- 
nacular in homes, second to fifth years of life; Latin; those portions of 
geography and history commonly tested by "external" examinations; home 
gardening by town boys ; high-school literature to meet college-entrance stand- 
ards; ordinary sixth to eighth grade arithmetic; drill in piano playing; listen- 
ing to attractive music; attendance on photodrama; learning a trade (ages 
sixteen to twenty) ; the activities of the usual summer camp for girls; reading 
of library books (voluntary) ? 

7. Let us, for convenience, classify under the head "natural learning" all 
those forms of growth in bodily powers, knowledge, appreciations, ideals, and 
the like, that, given a favorable environment of materials, examples, and 
incentives, take place without visible compulsion, hard conscious effort, drill, 
or training ; and as "artificial learning" all those forms of training and instruc- 
tion that, in the past at least, have usually been accomplished under more 
or less compulsion, discipline, drill, and conscious effort. In which category 
would you place each of the following forms of learning : one's mother tongue 
to the point of easy communication with peers; to walk; "goose-stepping"; 
to read, at six to eight years of age; to enjoy the Saturday Evening Post 
after one has finished the eighth grade ; high-school trigonometry ; general 
science from The Book of Knowledge, general science from Robinson Crusoe; 
general science as presented in existing textbooks; sloyd; learning to swim 
in the "old swimming hole"; learning skilful dressmaking? 

8. Does "natural learning" as we observe it usually involve much drudgery? 
Hard work? The shutting out of competing pleasures? 

Is "artificial learning" usually thought of as easy? As play? As necessi- 
tating shutting out of competing pleasures? 

Is it probable that most "natural learning" coincides with the "develop- 
mental learning" referred to above, and that most projective learning coincides 
with artificial learning? 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 323 

Would it be advantageous to recognize certain school objectives as of a 
"play" order, and others of a "work" order? Which kinds in each case? 

9. Using the foregoing distinctions, can you show that there are in the 
subject of geography, taken in its broadest aspects, certain detailed facts, 
conclusions, and methods of search or representation that should constitute 
alpha or projective objectives in schools-, and certain other materials that 
should be regarded as of the bet, ;pr developmental order? In which class 
would you place : geographical m(j mg pictures ; definite memorization of the 
capitals of the chief countries of South America; ordinary books of travel; 
attractive accounts of the fishei .3 of No,, ^j.. Scotia, the diamond mines of 
South Africa, the Gulf Stream, the traces of old civilizations in Central Amer- 
ica, central African game; fairly definite knowledge of the chief trade routes 
of the world? 

10. Using the same distinctions, suggest standards to guide in dividing 
American history into two "subjects" — a small body of material to serve alpha 
ends, and a large body (perhaps ten thousand ordinary pages) to make a 
beta subject (for grades five to eight inclusive). 

11. What are the primary social values to be realized through direct and 
efficient vocational education in : dentistry ; stenography ; navigation ; house 
carpentry; electric wiring? Are these measured almost entirely by the re- 
sulting competency (over a reasonable series of years) as a producer of useful 
service on the part of the person trained ? Or are there other values to be 
recognized ? 

12. What are the primary social values to be realized through direct and 
efficient liberal education in: high-grade music; nineteenth-century poetry; 
Greek language and literature; English history; economics; chemistry? Are 
these to be measured primarily by the resulting competency of the person edu- 
cated, not as a producer, but as an appreciator and utilizer of these values ? 

13. Is it at all common, desirable, or expedient for one person to be trained 
or proficient in several vocations — law and medicine ; carpentry and plumbing ? 
Is all economic progress accompanied by increased vocational specialization? 
Why? 

What qualities of appreciation, interests, and powers of high-grade utiliza- 
tion would you expect to find in a man alleged to have an exceptionally broad 
and modern liberal education? What appreciations would he have of many 
or all of these: good types of concert music; recent good French literature; 
the geography of Africa; recent progress in biology; politics of central 
Europe; Rodin's art; current "radical" poetry; recent American achievements 
in industrial chemistry; political reforms in our large cities; modern views as 
to the treatment of criminals; Einstein's theories; the government of Russia; 
improvement of moving pictures; recent arch^logical discoveries in Egypt? 

Is not all evolution of civilization, and the amassing by society of a richer 



324 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

social inheritance, accompanied by extensions and deepenings of the oppor- 
tunities of liberal education? 

14. Define the areas of vocational activities in vi^hich you are (a.) proficient 
in a marked degree; (b) slightly proficient; and (c) capable of working as 
an "unskilled" worker. 

Similarly, define areas of modern culture in which your appreciations, 
tastes, information, and interests give you the right to be treated as (a) well 
"cultivated"; (&) moderately cultivated; (c) slightly cultivated. (Break up 
fields of literature, science, art, foods, furnishings, geography, expert services, 
etc., into particular areas for this purpose.) 

15. Given the case of one hundred boys from American working-class 
homes, of good to fair ability, who can give four years, between ages fourteen 
and eighteen, exclusively to getting a good liberal secondary education in a 
high school. Assume that the elementary school has done its work fairly 
well, that none of these boys will go to higher institutions, and that you have 
entire freedom to devise a curriculum of liberal studies for them. From 
what areas of our "social inheritance" would you select? What kinds of 
materials ? 

Would you choose Greek literature? Astronomy? Recent advances in 
medicine? Current national politics? Classical music? Medieval history 
Japanese life and history? Recent European geography? Fabrics? Immi- 
gration? Problems of pure foods? 

What use could you probably make of : the Metropolitan Museum in New 
York; the best of current magazines; contemporary poetry; the large current 
literature of social betterment; modern interests in out-of-door life? 

What time woufd you wish to give to these traditional high-school studies : 
Latin; French; physics; Greek and Roman history; algebra; classical English 
literature; English composition? 

Looking back, upon what "principles" would you base your proposed "liberal" 
curriculum? 

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOLS^ 

Elementary schools of the more approved kinds now have a very wide 
range of purposes. They undertake to train their pupils to read, to write, 
and to "cipher." But they also encourage these pupils to play, to enjoy 
music, and to satisfy some of their instinctive curiosities about natural 
phenomena. The pupils are definitely instructed in certain facts of 
geography, history, and hygiene. But they are helped to gratify their 

*Very few of the numerous available books dealing with elementary school peda- 
gogy enter seriously upon problems of comparative educational values. But con- 
sult : F. Bobbitt, The Curriculum (Parts II-VI) ; J. L. Meriam, Child Life and the 
Curriculum (Ch. 5-12) ; and M. V. O'Shea, Dynamic Factors in Education (Ch. 
2-8). 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 325 

inherent desires for pictures and stories of travel, for real or feigned 
stories of adventure, and for understanding the functions of the bodily 
organs. 

Secondary schools, at their best, nov^ so train their students that they 
can meet fairly exacting tests in Latin, algebra, ancient history, modern 
language, physics, and other similar studies. But they also encourage in 
various ways the activities of their students in physical sports, debating, 
dramatics, excursions, participation in dances, attendance on the best 
"movies," use of public library, and cooperation in scouting and young 
people's church work. 

Extra-school educative activities of many kinds are participated in by 
young people, which are as yet quite uninfluenced by schools. The play 
life of home and street, the vacation camp on seashore or upland, the 
evenings passed in the home, the sharing in the work of the home — all 
these are, of course, very educative in a variety of ways. 

The historic function of the school — any type of school — was, appar- 
ently, to train and instruct youth in those arts or forms of knowledge 
which home and school environment did not give, or at least did not give 
well. Formerly pupils went to school to learn reading, writing, the cate- 
chism, Latin, grammar, mathematics, geography, and history — and per- 
haps music, painting, decorative needlework, and other "accomplishments" 
— ^because mastery of these was deemed essential to the educated man or 
woman. Hence the historic school did not spend (or "waste," as the 
older schoolmasters would have it) time on sports, informal content read- 
ing, stories, easy practical arts, and the scores of other "natural" ac- 
tivities which some schools of to-day aid and promote. 

The historic boarding school, of course, had to supervise free activ- 
ities out of school working hours ; but only an occasional Arnold, appar- 
ently, appreciated that these had, and could be made to have more, edu- 
cational values. 

The kindergarten has introduced a new set of aims into school educa- 
cation. From the outset it recognized the educative value of environmental 
influences as exerted by parents, household, play-place, and other con- 
tacts. But it believed that these in their natural unorganized form were 
often insufficient, and sometimes bad. The kindergarten school has there- 
fore tended increasingly to become a school of development — possibly 
a school to aid nature in assuring the wholesome growth of the child. 

Kindergarten ideals, the doctrine of interest, appreciation of the short- 
ages of urban environment for children, child study, and other causes 
have contributed to the rapid evolution during the last quarter of a cen- 



326 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tury of professional and public appreciation of types of educational need 
and method which were unfamiliar to our forefathers. The effects of this 
are now very apparent in the best primary-grade curricula; and even 
in upper grades and high schools the effects are traceable in all progres- 
sive theory, even though as yet but slightly in practice. 

The objectives of school education are greatly confused by these new 
developments. The older education rested itself solidly on the ground 
that it was "preparation for [adult] life." Its studies and courses were 
composed principally of materials — literary selections, mathematical prob- 
lems, grammatical speech, exact knowledge of geography and history, 
ability to read Latin, well defined religious creeds, bookkeeping, accurate 
science — that adults had found valuable, or as to which they deplored 
their own shortages. No one thought that such work was easy — 
in fact, if it seemed too easy it was supposed not to have real educa- 
tional worth. Many educators really believed with Mr. Dooley, "It doesn't 
matter what ye teach a boy — so long as he does n't like it." But modern 
pedagogy found that in much of older education the approaches were too 
abrupt or too artificial for sound progress. A still more modern pedagogy 
discovers that the "interest" of the learner — his motivation for the work 
— is also a factor in good learning. Under some conditions learners can, 
clearly, be led faster than they can be driven. 

But the conception that "education is life" (displacing the doctrine 
that it is the primary function of the schools to "prepare for adult life") 
seems to many to invalidate the old methods. Many ambitious educators 
are trying to use the old bottles of objectives for the new wine of methods, 
with comical results. "Education must be adapted to the needs of the 
children" — present needs or later needs, do they mean? So they try to 
manipulate environment and incentives so that a pupil of eleven may 
come to feel that he "needs" long division, grammatical speech, and some 
fairly exact knowledge of South American geography. 

Educational objectives are of many kinds, as previously shown, and 
these may be variously classified. But a classification based on the ex- 
pected time of their optimum functioning of these objectives is of utmost 
importance in curriculum making. There are proper objectives of school 
education that are, or should be, truly projective — that is, the power 
produced or knowledge stored is not expected to function usefully until 
some time later in life. But there are other objectives that grow out of 
the proper purposes of educators to aid present processes of growth or 
development. 
■ It is possible, and under some conditions highly desirable, that children 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 327 

at six or eight years of age should learn the multiplication table very ex- 
actly, though manifestly they can not for ten or a dozen years yet put 
that knowledge to practical use in their activities— aside from the rela- 
tively artificial ones imposed through more schooling. But children from 
one to three years learn the vernacular — not, then, with a view to adult 
needs, but in order to share in the life about them. 

The educative process as a whole — in school and out of school — must 
be studied in order to obtain perspective wherewith to classify objectives. 
Let us use the words growth, development, nurture, learning, training, and 
instruction as all embodying purposes with which education in its broad- 
est sense is concerned. 

Every child, as noted earlier, grows as a result of its nurture and en- 
vironmental conditions. It grows in size of body, dififerentiation of organs, 
and "instinct-pushed" activities, in experience, in friendliness, in pug- 
nacity, and in numberless other respects. 

Or we can say that he learns to walk, talk, roam, ride, dance, court, 
work, lead, worship, and serve. He learns to care for certain people, to 
desire certain fine art, to hold his own counsel. He learns from his con- 
tacts with parents, play fellows, adult friends, enemies, pictures, books, 
and newspapers. He even learns from brooks, stones, wild animals, and 
the stars. 

We may say that he develops or evolves his powers. At first his physi- 
cal coordinations are few and imperfect, but, given time and opportunities, 
he develops the endlessly varied and incessantly exercised physical activities 
of a normal boy of ten. Given incentives and opportunities, he develops 
a host of likes and dislikes, aspirations and convictions, interests and 
antipathies. 

Any and all recognition, supervision, control, and direction of these 
growth and learning processes are properly a part of education, as that 
word must be defined in light of modern developments. In part we 
educate as we heal, by making it possible for nature to take its course; 
but in part, no less, we educate as certain medicines or surgery heals, by 
processes far removed from the natural, as ordinarily conceived. 

Developmental objectives of education, as they will be called here, are 
those in which it is primarily the obligation of educators to provide whole- 
some conditions for natural growth or development — in all its physical, 
intellectual, social, and even esthetic and spiritual varieties. Develop- 
mental education in speech is assured by giving children example and 
natural incentives to exercise their powers of imitation in a suitable en- 
vironment. Developmental physical education results if, after suitable 



328 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

nurture, rest, and shelter are provided, the facilities of physical play are 
available — level places, steeps, running water, trees, snow, ice, cliffs, 
shrubbery, hiding places, sliding places, balls, wheels, missiles, pet ani- 
mals, and, with it all, play fellows for competition and cooperation. De- 
velopmental education in reading takes place when, the mechanical diffi- 
culties of reading having been mastered, and sufficient maturity having 
been attained, one is given a library to roam in, or at least many books to 
read without sense of compulsion. 

Projective objectives of education are those imposed upon youth 
against the long years of adult needs. Trigonometry, one of the world's 
most useful bodies of knowledge, can, with some effort, and sacrifice of 
more naturally interesting activities, be learned by able-minded youths 
between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Perhaps the number who will 
later have serious occasion to use this science will never exceed 5 per 
cent, of all persons — for the present, apparently, male persons only; but 
to these it is supremely important. Between the ages of ten and twenty 
it is possible, perhaps under some degree of compulsion, and certainly 
at the expense of more immediately attractive activities, to learn much 
of French or Japanese, Latin or some other non-vernacular language. 
Perhaps not many should be induced to do this, having in mind society's 
other needs ; but it may be very important, sometimes to individuals, 
sometimes to their church, sometimes to their nation, that some do learn 
such language, and learn it very well. 

Should we not include as projective objectives training in handwrit- 
ing, grammar, the more artificial aspects of arithmetic, sight reading 
of music, trade performance, bookkeeping, and laboratory methods? 
Silent reading, which can be fairly well learned between the ages of six 
and nine, comes to be very functional in the lives of many young 
people between the ages of ten and eighteen. A child of ten may be 
taught dancing, for which he cares very little, but finds it a most joy- 
giving, and a useful mate-finding, accomplishment from sixteen to twenty- 
five. During the last five centuries many boys learned Greek, probably 
under the severest of compulsion, only to find, when well along in 
manhood, that their early training now constituted a key to a wonderful 
treasure house. 

Classification of educational objectives into the two groups here sug- 
gested is of fundamental importance to curriculum making, and in de- 
termining specific methods. (For convenience we shall hereafter refer 
to projective objectives as of the A or alpha class, and developmental ob- 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 329 

jectives as of the B or beta class.) Beta objectives, ordinarily, seem to 
admit of very great flexibility of means. Physical play — from the simple, 
aimless individual or dual plays of little children, to the highly organized 
cooperative and group-competitive sports of adolescents- — are essential 
to proper growth; but these need not be the same for any two children, 
necessarily. All young people should have their minds nourished — or, 
better, developed or educated — by an abundance o£ good stories ; but 
there is no essential reason why all should have the same stories, or why, 
in fact, any two should, in their free reading, cover the same ground. 
Travel is, of course, very educative; but the world presents unnumbered 
opportunities for travel, and no two persons need traverse quite the same 
paths. 

Alpha objectives, on the other hand, tend toward considerable definite- 
ness. Handwriting, the multiplication table, spelling of the most used 
three thousand words, the essential facts of American history or world 
geography, the essentials of Spanish, trigonometry, or chemistry — all 
these, as organized for school purposes, perhaps as necessary in adult 
life, seem to represent areas of training and instruction in which flexibility, 
freedom to range and browse, and a wide variety of options are not at all 
practicable. 

Thoroughness of learning seems to differentiate heavily as between 
the two classes, although, in the light of more adequate standards, this 
notion may prove illusory. But in certain fields developmental educa- 
tion requires and justifies less learning effort than projective learning. 
Stories read, games played, music heard, desires for exploration satis- 
fied, make less exacting demands for thorough learning than do hand- 
writing and other similar subjects. In fact, there seem to exist no good 
reasons why many beta subjects should not be approached and covered 
in the appreciative, semisuperficial fashion characteristic of adults in read- 
ing a daily newspaper or a short story, or in witnessing a dramatic per- 
formance. The modern studies in the schools — nature study, art appre- 
ciation, literature, practical arts, informal history — have greatly confused 
teachers, pupils, and external examiners because of the pernicious belief 
that the same standards of thorough learning should be applied to them 
as to the historic supposedly projective studies. 

Expected functionings of learning, when properly differentiated, are 
related to this, alpha-beta classification in some degree. Spelling, obviously, 
is studied in order that all the rest of life the performance, execution, or 
doing of spelling will be readily and accurately possible. Handwriting, 



33Q EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the multiplication table, typewriting for the typist, a trade, are taught so 
as to meet standards of doing, of practical performance. 

But literature is not taught in schools of general education to make 
writers, nor music to make composers. School baseball may result in 
amateur performers, but is not expected to produce professional per- 
formers. .We teach the hygiene of eyes and teeth for other purposes than 
the making of oculists and dentists. 

Powers of performance should, in the determination of educational 
objectives, be separately considered, perhaps set in contrast to, abilities 
or capacities to appreciate. In some degree, all of us are expected to 
appreciate poetry, well cooked food, good* work by policemen, the eluci- 
dations of science, and well played music, without being ourselves able 
to write poetry, cook meals, work as policemen, conduct scientific research, 
or execute music. As shown elsewhere, the vocationally efficient man 
is that one who in some special field — bookkeeping, ship navigation, cattle 
raising, or primary-school teaching — can render high-grade service with 
a minimum of wear and tear. But the culturally efficient man is in large 
part that one who values, and can wisely choose for the enrichment of 
his own life and that of those associated with him, those products of 
others — the world's geniuses, many of them— in such fields as literature, 
music, history, science, craftsmanship, civic service, travel, architecture, 
religion, and the rest. 

A large proportion — but by no means all — of the beta objectives are 
designed to produce appreciations. But education toward appreciation 
is a very different, and perhaps, in most instances, a very much simpler, 
matter than is education in powers of execution or performance. Certainly 
it is easier to educate most of us to recognize and to enjoy good dress- 
making, dramatic performance, public speaking, sculpture, or gardening 
than to make of us good professional performers in these several 
fields. 

Powers of amateur performance are frequently, of course, the objec- 
tives of developmental education in sports, amateur arts, and some 
cultural lines. If these lead to permanent avocational interests and ac- 
tivities 'they constitute a valuable part of "education for leisure." Com- 
monly they do not do so, however. But in that case they do produce 
valuable appreciations. For a growing boy a little hunting, fishing, gar- 
dening, printing, electrical work, exploration, woodworking, photography, 
and scores of other arts are valuable as contributions to developmental 
education. They produce experiences, tastes, appreciations. 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 331 



SUGGESTED DIFFERENTIATION OF DISSIMILAR OBJECTIVES IN SCHOOLS ^ 

A. For Age Groups Four to Six. All ordinary school objectives should 
be considered as developmental, compensatory to deficiencies in develop- 
mental environment. 

Certain home ediicational objectives — dressing, cleaning, social be- 
havior, property recognition, etc. — are partly of projective training order. 
Schools may cooperate in furthering these under exceptional conditions 
of deficiency. 

B. For Age Groups Six ta Nine. Apart from rest and sleep, about 
thirty-six hundred hours a year are available for active growth, develop- 
ment, instruction, and training of these learners. Of these hours, favored 
school systems now take from 700 to 1000. Historic schools hold as 
"hard" or "alpha" objectives oral reading, silent reading, spelling, hand- 
writing, number, and certain phases of school behavior. Home education, 
not always consistently, trains in certain forms of behavior, dressing, and 
household service. But major portions of home time are spent in de- 
velopmental activities — speech, companionship, exploration, games, com- 
petitions, expansion of likes and dislikes, and variety of simple arts. 

Present recommended reorganizations: (a) Reduce school time to two 
or three hours daily if home environment is favorable. Extend school 
time to eight hours daily and 300 days a year, if environment is unfa- 
vorable to developmental activities. (&) Give not more than one hour 
daily at the age of six and two hours at nine to "work-level" or alpha 
learning; first grade, reading only; second, reading and writing; third, 
reading, writing, number, with spelling incidental (and approved so- 
cial behavior in all grades). (c) In schools of good environment, 
beta learning is to compensate for ascertained home deficiencies, per- 
haps in nature study, history stories, expansion of social ideals, {d) In 
schools serving children of poor environment, a large range of beta ac- 
tivities is desirable; instruction in, and idealization of, hygienic practices; 
initiation of new games ; appreciation music ; stories and teacher's reading ; 
pictures ; simple tools for practical arts ; interpretation of social environ- 
ment, leading to community civics appreciations; various simple projects 
for general experience. 

Problem i. Is it usually at all practicable for schools to accomplish 

"These suggestions are submitted primarily to focus discussion of "comparative 
values" of objectives. 



332 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

effective results cooperatively or otherwise in fields of : (a) hygienic 
training (except school-room postures, etc.), since practice must be in 
home and supervised play — eating, body cleansing, oral cleansing, sleep, 
rest, sex, etc; (b) regular "chore" work in household or wage-earning 
service; (c) lawful behavior in free exploratory time; (d) household 
speech, social behavior, etc.? 

Problem 2. Should slow children give excess time to alpha school 
subjects, thus lessening time for developmental subjects? 

Problem 3. Should bright children be encouraged and permitted to 
move rapidly in alpha subjects; or should they keep normal rate and be 
given wider range and profounder experiences in beta subjects, including 
physical play, practical arts, excursions, etc? 

C. For Age Groups Nine to Twelve. Apart from sleep, these have 
more than 4000 hours yearly for developmental education, training, etc., 
of which rarely more than 1000 at the outside are claimed by schools. 
Exploration and several forms of intense developmental social education 
take place among urban children, outside of home and school environ- 
ment. Present recommended reorganizations : 

a. From two to three hours in school daily for alpha studies for all, 
for 180 days yearly, separately organized in departments of: oral speech 
- — pronunciation, structure, etc. ; silent reading ; handwriting ; letter writ- 
ing ; spelling ; arithmetic ; alpha geography ; alpha history ; school behavior. 
Supplemental alpha studies for election at parents' desire ; oral reading ; 
musical notation reading; drawing and painting; a foreign language. 

h. From two to five additional hours, for 180 to 300 days a year, ac- 
cording to environment, outside work, etc., for developmental activities 
(the larger amounts being optional for pupils of favoring environments 
and in whom developmental education is taking place normally, but pre- 
scriptive for pupils unfavorably situated, or showing signs — speech, read- 
ing interests, play cooperations, social growth, hygienic practices — of , 
inferior development). Usual beta activities will be toward wider reading, 
improved art appreciations, "nature and science interpretations, varied prac- 
tical arts, current events, physical games, information and idealization of 
health, beta geography and history, thrift, and scores of others. In these 
lines project methods should prevail as far as practicable — and in all cases 
great flexibility, much deferring to personal interests, and encouragement 
of individual initiative. 

Problem i. As in earlier group, can the school do much that is effec- 
tive in hygienic training, except as to school-time conditions? 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 333 

Problem 2. How, if at all, can school reach extra-school social be- 
havior except through pre-cultivated appreciations and ideals? 

Problem 3. Will it prove practicable for the school to promote or 
control productive "work" activities, especially physical work, in urban 
environments? Are these work activities probably essential as alpha 
contributions to vocational, moral, health, and thrift, appreciations, pow- 
ers, or other qualities? 

Problem 4. May it prove that substantial proportions of pupils will 
exhibit no genuine "developmental" interests along intellectual or esthetic 
lines ? 

Problem 5. What adjustments of above should be made for pupils of 
inferior intelligence? Health? Moral character? 

Problem 6. What adjustments for children of superior intelligence? 
Physical powers? Moral disposition? Esthetic sensibilities? Specific 
powers of creative performance? 

D. For Age Groups Twelve to Fourteen. Present recommended re- 
organizations : 

a. Alpha studies, common for all : salient or essential history, world, 
American, local ; salient geography ; crucial civic problems. 

Alpha studies prescribed for deficients from standards approved for 
(A) inferior potentialities, (B) modal potentialities, and (C) superior 
potentialities in : pronunciation ; oral language structure ; oral vocabulary ; 
handwritihg ; spelling ; letter writing ; utilizers' arithmetic ; current events ; 
exact knowledge of hygiene; silent reading; school behavior; physical 
(corrective) training. 

Alpha studies elective by persons of promising abilities : oral reading ; 
several forms of oral and instrumental music ; a foreign language ; sev- 
eral forms of mathematics ; several kinds of graphic arts ; oral composi- 
tion (speech making) ; economics and sociology. 

h. Beta activities and studies of wide range, permitting much election, 
subject to requirement that all must give at least 300 hours yearly, and 
that deficients must give up to 1500 hours yearly to: physical develop- 
ment through sports, work (?), hygienic practice; social development, 
through various forms of cooperation, games, scouting ; cultural develop- 
ment, through several forms of reading, picture appreciation, amateur 
handicraft^ gardening, vacation travel, etc. ; vocational guidance. 

E. For Age Groups Fourteen to Sixteen and Sixteen to Eighteen. 
Same as for Age Group twelve to fourteen, except : 

I. Pupils electing full-time vocational training, to be probably func- 
^onal in wage-earning employment on completion of course, shall be 



334 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

provided for through part-time arrangements for participation in pro- 
ductive work. 

2. Curricula of Hberal education shall be arranged for certain case- 
groups of pupils on assumption that their full-time general education will 
close at sixteen. 

3. Preparatory courses for higher institutions shall be arranged and 
evaluated strictly in terms of the contributions of these courses to de- 
fined types of college work — the true ideal of "alpha" studies. 

DIFFERENTIATION OF DISSIMILAR OBJECTIVES OF SUBJECTS 

I. Alpha or projective studies in all ordinary school stages : hand- 
writing ; hard spelling ; arithmetic ; a foreign language ; high-school mathe- 
matics ; present high-school physics and chemistry ; mechanical drawing ; 
all purposive vocational training — stenography, carpentry, farming, dress- 
making, the professions — as now found ; probably other forms of voca- 
tional training to be developed — home-making, factory operative special- 
ties, etc. 

II. Beta or developniental studies and activities in all ordinary stages : 
physical plays and sports ; general reading ; moving-picture appreciation ; 
friendly association; amateur intellectual and arts "sports" — debating, 
gardening, cooking, scouting, hunting, fishing, exploring, games ; nature 
appreciation and interpretation; music appreciation; circus, dramatics, 
books of travel, etc. 

III. Subjects now organized and presented largely on basis of alpha 
traditions and standards which should probably be reorganized as beta sub- 
jects ; general science; hygiene; physical training (sometimes); practical 
arts; major portions of the content of geography and history; high-school 
literature; drawing (less now than formerly); and vocational guidance. 

IV. In the earlier stages of these subjects, beta standards might well 
control for sake of apperceptive interests : arithmetic ; letter writing and 
other composition ; geography and history ; civic problems ; physical train- 
ing (corrective). 

V. Eventually certain alpha subjects should be developed in these 
fields: civic problems (or economic and other social science problems); 
problems of news interpretation ; silent reading, 

VI. Environmental education of household and street is largely devel- 
opmental. To correct its serious shortages or malformations, alpha units 
may be necessary for school education in : pronunciation ; correct grammar ; 
correction of slang; posture; cleanliness; and many others. 



THE OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION 335 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

BiRDSEYE, Clarence. The Reorganization of Our Colleges (Part I, 

Shall We Reorganize Our Colleges?). 
Brown, J. F. The American High School (Ch. 2 and 3, Functions and 

Programs). 
Butler, N. M. The Meaning of Education (Ch. 2, The Meaning of 

Education). 
Hanus, p. Educational Aims and Educational Values. 
Johnson, H. Teaching of History (Ch. 15, Correlation of History 

with Other Subjects). 
Johnston, C. H. The Modern High School (Ch. 2, High-School Educa- 
tion as a Social Enterprise). 
JuDD, C. H. Psychology of the High-School Subjects (Ch. 19, General 

Problems). 
Miller, I. E. Education for the Needs of Life (Ch. 2, The Meaning and 

the Aims of Education). 
Moore, E. C. What Is Education? (Ch. 10, Diagnostic Education). 
Ross, E. A. Principles of Sociology (Ch, 54, Principle of Anticipation). 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS 
. OF ANALYSIS 

A. THE "CASE-GROUP" METHOD OF DERIVING 
VALID OBJECTIVES 

INTERPRETATIONS OP EXPERIENCE 

rF all children or adults were alike in their original natures, their en- 
vironmental conditions, and their prospects in life, we should suggest 
and specify the same educational aims or objectives for all, and especially 
of those objectives for which schools are primarily responsible. But 
children and adults dififer greatly in all these respects. Hence certain 
educational objectives might be desirable and practicable for some, and 
not at all for others. Would you recommend that: a child of inferior 
mental ability be urged to study Greek, or advanced mathematics? A 
person with inferior sense of rhythm be induced to try to become a mu- 
sician? A boy of inferior physique try to become a coal-miner? A 
woman seek to become a locomotive engineer? 

Possibly an ideal scheme of education would adapt its recommended 
or prescribed ofiferings to each person, according to his individual needs. 
But, ordinarily, that is wholly impracticable. We must provide the means 
of school education — desks, class rooms, books, lessons, problems, examin- 
ations, time-tables — as well as many forms of extra-school education — 
newspapers, books, lectures, vocational training — for groups of persons 
who are selected on the basis of being as nearly alike as practicable in 
their abilities and needs. Schools as well as some other educational agen- 
cies — including armies, shops, ships, churches, and guilds — have in fact 
always been more or less guided by abilities and needs of selected groups 
in their educational work. But in much of the literature of education, 
and especially that which deals largely with aspirations and ideals, there 
persists a troublesome carelessness or disregard of the large variabilities 
among those for whom schools, curricula, courses, lessons, and educa- 
tional equipment must be designed. 

Scientific determination of desirable and practicable objectives for many 
forms of education can be devised only in the light of fairly definite as- 
sumptions or findings of fact as to the potentialities of what will for 
convenience be here called "case-groups." Recalling your own experiences, 
what answers will you submit to these questions : 

I. In a certain large city high-school first-year class are loo boys (Case- 
Group A), all of whom conform substantially to this description: they are of 

336 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 337 

considerably more than average ability, come from prosperous homes, have 
good health and moral character, and are of American ancestry. 

In the same school first -year class is another 100 boys (Case-Group B) who 
conform generally to this description : they are of less than average intelli- 
gence, they come from relatively poor home environments, and are hardly 
satisfactory in moral behavior. 

a. Will many Case A boys probably go to college ? Case B boys ? 

h. What vocations will chiefly attract Case A boys ? Could Case B boys 
probably enter these vocations if they desired? What vocations will Case B 
boys probably enter? 

c. From which group, probably, will more political leaders emerge? 

d. Granting that the schools do the best they can, what will probably be the 
persistent reading interests, at age forty, of the survivors of the two groups 
respectively ? 

e. If one fifth of all school time during the first year could be devoted to 
health or physical education, should any differences of offerings be made for 
these two groups ? 

2. In a large elementary school in a city are 100 girls thirteen years of age 
(Case-Group C) who are: two or more grades retarded, of less than average 
mental ability, and from poor home environments. Does it seem to you prob- 
able that any considerable numbers of these girls : 

a. Will go to college or normal school? 

b. Will not enter upon wage-earning callings? 

c. Will not marry and have homes of their own? 

d. Will remain in school long beyond the period of compulsory attendance? 
What bearings should these considerations have on the prescriptions or 

offerings of this school (or other public schools) for them? Would it seem 
advisable to urge them : to study French ; home economics ; to become pro- 
ficient in basketball ; to learn some branch of a factory pursuit or salesmanship 
• — what, for example ? 

3. In a large city high school it is found that among 400 pupils entering, 
from 50 to 60 answer substantially to this description : they made hardly more 
than "passing" grades in elementary school subjects; mental tests show that 
they are below the average of intelligence; their parents are manual workers 
with rather meager resources; and it seems very unlikely that these pupils 
will remain in high school more than one or two years.' What, in your estima- 
tion, should the high school seek to accomplish for these pupils? Should the 
faculty urge them to take Latin? Manual training? Ancient history? Hy- 
giene ? French ? Should it seek to teach them a trade — e.g., carpentry ? Can 
this trade be taught in a high school ? Given a free hand, what kind of a 
two years' course would you plan for these pupils? Separately consider 
possible offerings of physical training, literature, civics, current events, music, 
stenography, general science, and other subjects. Would you provide studies 



338 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

primarily to help these children themselves, or to make them better mem- 
bers of societies — and of what societies especially? 

4. You are told that a certain 1000 persons answer this description: they 
have immigrated to America within the last three years from cities in south- 
ern Italy; they are men from twenty-five to forty years of age. What pre- 
dictions can you make as to what will probably be, for the large majority: 
places of residence — urban, rural, Eastern state, Southern state; occupations 
entered; interests in education of their children; desires to become Ameri- 
canized; abilities to save money? 

5. In a certain city of 200,000 population, 100 home-makers are taken at 
random from each of two widely separated social classes. Both sets are 
American born, and from thirty-five to forty years of age. The family income 
of Set A is from $5000 to $8000 a year, of set B from $1400 to $1800. Knowing 
only these facts, answer these questions : What will be the prevailing size of 
the home of the members of each set? The prevailing size of the family? 
The usual home-making duties ? The occupations of their husbands ? 

6. The following facts are known regarding 100 young men aged twenty-two 
to twenty-four: they have just graduated from liberal arts colleges in Eastern 
states, having had sufficient parental backing so that they did not have "to 
work their way through." You are asked to infer generally true conclusions 
under these heads : What will be their prevailing tastes in clothes ? The 
vocations to which they will mostly aspire? The probable character of their 
civic performance at age forty? Their present health, and their probable 
health at age fifty ? 

THE CASE-GROUP METHOD OF APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF 
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES 

Mankind is composed of individuals who vary widely in many re- 
spects.^ Some are very young, some are very old. Some are large of 
body, some small. Some are black in color, some white. A few are 
born very "long" in mental powers, a few very "short." Some seem 
strongly endowed with musical abilities, some seem to be "music-deaf." 

Habitat and social conditions of parents and others constitute also 
important differences. Of two boys, born on the same day, one to a poor 
native mother in Afghanistan and another to a prosperous farmer in 
Minnesota, the subsequent life histories are practically certain to be im- 
mensely different, because of differences in their environments. 

Because of these diversities, the sweeping characterizations in which 

mystical or superficial social thinkers like to indulge fail very largely 

* The rich psychological literature on "mental testing" will be consulted by the 
interested student. The Great War gave a splendid impetus to researches in this 
field. See Yoakum and Yerkes, Army Mental Tests. 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 339 

to correspond to realities. "Women are less intelligent than men" ; "the 
French are more artistic than the Germans" ; "farmers are more con- 
servative than city peoples"; "the Irish are a political race"; "the Oriental 
is phlegmatic and a fatalist" — these, and numberless other generaliza- 
tions like them, are of slight service either to descriptive, or to applied, 
sociology. 

They are especially unsatisfactory as foundations whereon to erect 
policies of education or other social action. Not a little educational writ- 
ing centers about that abstraction "the child." Contemporary psychology 
renders more scientific the knowledge that men have always had as to the 
wide ranges of the basic intelligence of children. Some are born with 
large endowments — certainly of general, and possibly of particular, kinds, 
as these manifest themselves in action. "The child" may be black or 
white, of frail body or excellent health, of much natural courage or tim- 
idity. He may be the offspring of poor and dissolute parents who will at 
best create a poor growth environment about him; or else he may arrive 
in a home of thrift, strong moral control, and excellent social aspirations. 

Formerly this question was much debated : "Should girls have the same 
education as boys?" A distinguished educator put a permanent quietus 
upon these debates by the simple device of asking, "Which boys ?" Some 
boys need or can take one kind of education ; whilst some other boys need 
or can take a quite different kind. Similarly, no one kind of education, 
beyond the most elemental stages, can be imposed as "right" for all girls. 
Should the negro have the same education as the white? Which kind 
of negro, and which kind of white? Booker Washington once mildly 
rebuked certain critics for their tendency, in comparing blacks and whites, 
to compare "the worst negro" with "the best white man." He quizzically 
recommended a reversal of this practice as salutary to moral wholesome- 
ness — that is, a comparison of the worst white man with the best negro. 

Easy sociological generalizations can in a degree be avoided through 
use of the case-group method. This in essence consists in the isolation 
for scientific study of groups of human beings fairly homogeneous as 
respects one or several qualities. Practically, we are constantly taking 
action with reference to case-groups, even though the sociological ap- 
plications are often obscured. An employer, having certain work in view, 
chooses his workers with quite definite reference to their possession of 
certain qualities in expected degrees. Classes in s'chools are formed as 
far as practicable so as to produce homogeneity of age, ability, and the 
like. Shoes, bicycles, school desks, and many kitchen utensils are made 
in standard sizes essentially to meet case-group requirements. Golf clubs 



340 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

are made in rights and lefts. In Boston a large proportion of readers of 
newspapers could not read newspaper A (with any freedom or satisfac- 
tion) if they would; whilst a very influential minority, greatly enjoying 
newspaper A, would not read newspaper B. For some purposes these 
two groups of readers could be studied as case-groups. 

Case-groups may be differentiated by a succession of qualities. It is 
hard to generalize with any success about the six million or more human 
beings living in New York City. They consist of male and female, all 
ages, all nationalities, all economic levels, many religious faiths, and all 
ability levels. But we might make some useful applications of knowledge 
of the prevailing characteristics of (a) those residents of New York, (&) 
men (c) between thirty-five and forty-five years of age who (d) are 
American born and (e) who follow manual (/) semi-skilled vocations. 

We are all prone to generalize about "the farmer" — of whom there are 
perhaps eight million in the United States. But (Case M) farmers of 
"American stock," li\^ing in Iowa, and owning, free of mortgage, at ages 
forty to forty-five, from forty to fifty thousand dollars' worth of prop- 
erty, are widely different in many essentials from farmers (Case N) 
who were born in Poland and who at age fifty are doing some gen- 
eral farming on rented tracts of rather poor land in southern New 
Hampshire. 

Is there a "type" seventh-grade pupil for whom curricula should be 
designed? We know that seventh-grade pupils vary greatly in abilities, 
home conditions, future prospects. Let us divide 500 seventh-grade pu- 
pils in a city school, first into two classes, A (all above the average in 
intelligence as tested by any convenient standard) and B (all below the 
average). Let us now divide each of these classes in two groups accord- 
ing as their fathers earn more than three thousand dollars a year (M 
group) or less (N group). 

What are some easily predictable probable future conditions of the AM 
group? The BN group? Less easy, perhaps, is it to make useful prog- 
noses of the AN and the BM groups. But we must remember that, in 
the last analysis, all school curricula are built on expectations. 

B. PROBLEMS OF THE "FUNCTIONING" OF EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Education being one of the important means of individual and social 
efficiency must, in the last analysis, be judged and evaluated, as to pur- 
pose and method, in terms of its products. What are these? Obviously, 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 341 

modifications in the behavior of persons. And, ordinarily, it is to the 
behavior of adults that we should look for our best tests of results. 

Some of these products are easily determinable. If v^^e wish to train 
children to read, we evaluate our results in terms of adult literacy. But 
it is as impossible to discern in adult qualities the surviving^ products of 
their child-time games of marbles as it is to discern the projected effects 
of their child-time breakfasts. The outcomes of the study of French 
in high school we should perhaps be able to measure at age thirty; but 
far less tangible are the effects on better civism of the history or civic 
studies pursued at the same time. 

Clearly, there can be no scientific determination of educational ob- 
jectives that does not, as far as practicable, seek to study products, out- 
comes, or functionings of such education. Your own personal experience 
is a good starting point here: 

1. What powers and appreciations in yourself do you trace directly to school 
education — reading and writing, literary interests, reading knowledge of a 
foreign language, vocational powers, health ideals, and habits, musical in- 
terests, civic attitudes, etc. ? 

Which do you trace primarily to extra-school education and influences 
brought to bear through the school? Which to home, church, and neighbor- 
hood influences unconnected with the schools? 

Analyze the qualities of representatives of these fields of work known to 
you: a farmer; a business leader; a partially unsuccessful professional man; 
a home-maker with a large family; and a casual laborer. In each case en- 
deavor to trace to their (c) schools, (b) school environment, and (c) non- 
school environments respectively their distinctive "acquired" qualities. 

2. It is proposed to establish a school to train house carpenters — taking boys 
at eighteen years of age. But the "content" of this vocation is not clearly 
defined. Show how "job analysis" of adults now working at the trade could 
be used to determine this. If it is found that employers rate certain car- 
penters "excellent," others "good," others "fair," still others "poor," and a 
fifth group as "failures," which group would you study to get sound criteria 
of workmanship in training for the vocation? How would you make proper 
discount for the "natural" genius of the "excellent" ? 

3. Take five persons known to you whose ages are not greatly different 
from your own. Rate them, as far as you know them, on an A, B, C, D, E 
scale (C, fair or average) in these matters: 

a. General health. 

b. Vocational health — that is, by the standards required for their vocation. 

c. Physical development. 

d. Hygienic and sanitary practices. 

e. Health ideals, active. 

/. Recreational participations. 
g. Physical training. 



342 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

To what extent do their acquired qualities in these directions derive from 
school education? From other sources that can be identified? 

4. What, in your estimation, are evidences of a "cultivated mind" ? Define 
the qualities found in some persons known to you which justifies their being 
called intellectually and esthetically cultivated or cultured. Would such quali- 
ties, as you see it, invariably include interests in: literature? Music? Graphic 
art? Science? Nature, as the naturalists see it? Remote history? Contem- 
porary history ? Human fellowship and manners ? 

Have you known manual workers who were "cultured people"? Women, 
home-makers with large families? Farmers? Have you known professional 
men or women who were really not "cultured" ? 

Trace the origins of the culture of some persons to youth (o) in schools, 
(&) in school associations, and (c) in non-school agencies? 

5. What are distinguishable social qualities, as you see them, in men of 
"good" civic and moral behavior? Trace probable origins of these qualities 
in certain persons known to you. Of which has the home given more than 
the school ? The trade union more than the church ? The neighborhood social 
environment more than the home? What have been specific contributions of 
1rhe schools? 

In your estimation, does "moral character" "correlate closely" (or vary pro- 
portionately) with: native intelligence; amount of school education; wealth? 
How did the "moral character" of the Boys of '76 probably compare with that 
of the Boys of 1917? H.ow did the "civism" (good citizenship in the political 
sense) of the New England and North Mississippi Valley young men of 1861 
who gave themselves freely in the Civil War probably compare with that of 
the relatively far more literate men of 1917? 

If you were proposing a scheme of civic education for junior and senior 
high schools to-day, from what classes of adults in the community would you 
derive your standards of "desirable and practicable" civic conduct? By these 
standards, are you a good civic member of society? 



THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONING OF THE SCHOOL SUBJECTS 

The social inheritance of knowledge, skill, appreciation, etc., takes the 
form in part of subjects of study in school and college. We give these 
class, as well as individual, names, c. g., handwriting, Spanish, ancient 
history, biology. Some of the subjects, such as English language, can 
be differentiated into a variety of sub-species, such as pronunciation, punc- 
tuation, vocabulary building, and the like. 

By "social functioning of subjects" is meant the use in society, or in 
important parts of it, of the subject as it may be taught or studied. We 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 343 

think of handwriting and simple spelHng as being universally helpful 
to literate peoples. It seems important to us that at least a limited number 
of persons in the state or nation should be able to read Spanish, to speak 
it, or to interpret and translate Spanish literature. By general consent, all 
pupils in our schools should be taught some essentials of hygiene, and 
beyond this more or additional hygiene should be taught to the followers 
of particular vocations, and to those living under particular conditions. 

Study of the problems of social functioning of school subjects involves 
certain methods of approach: .,^/ ^' 

a. What is the character, scope, and content of the subject? 

h. Why should it be taught to any one? To what ends or purposes 
should it be taught ? 

c. To whom should it be taught? 

d. Where procure the necessary time, resources, teaching power, and 
other means of teaching it? 

e. When should it be taught? 
/. How teach it? 

Problems of objectives will be of various kinds: 

a. There are certain established subjects as to which no one disputes 
the validity of the historic aims. For example, silent reading, hand- 
writing, simple arithmetic, hygiene. Present-day problems are here chiefly 
as to the optimum standards of achievement that should be sought. The 
number of subjects that could be taught in every large school to-day 
far exceeds the time and learning energy of pupils. Therefore we must 
find minimum essentials in the subjects named above. What, for persons 
of a given case-group, constitutes minimum optimum achievement in 
each of these subjects? Problems of aim here are still acute, obviously. 

h. In other cases no one disputes the value of the subject, but im- 
portant problems of aim center in the selection of learners. No person 
probably seriously disputes that some American youth should be given 
opportunity, or should be induced even, to study Greek, Latin, quantita- 
tive chemistry, Chinese history, or Aztec inscriptions somewhere in school 
or college. Many persons dispute the advisability of prescribing any one 
of these subjects for many students; or even of providing them at con- 
siderable expense for large numbers of students who may desire to take 
them. 

c. In still other cases, problems of aim center chiefly in the organiza- 
tion of subject matter itself. All are agreed that our schools should do 
something in the way of teaching civism, thrift, appreciation of mathe- 



344 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

matics, current events, and the like. There exists, however, altogether 
insufficient knowledge of specific objectives to facilitate the organization 
of means and methods. 

In the case of any given subject it will frequently happen that more 
than one aim can be realized through its study. Educators often create 
confusion by allowing the assumption to prevail that two or more aims 
may be of equal importance. In the very nature of the case, this can 
not be so. One primary aim only can, as a rule, control in the organiza- 
tion of the means and methods of teaching the subject. All other aims 
must be incidental or subordinate to this. Hence it is essential, in dis- 
cussing the sociological foundations of any subject, that first attention be 
given to the primary aim that should control in its teaching, after which 
it becomes possible to speak of various secondary aims or objectives that 
can be realized as by-products. 

C. CLASSIFICATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Practical life, as well as science, finds classifications, categories, differ- 
entiations, and groupings indispensable to any progress in thinking, dis- 
cussion, and formulation. The reader will find himself already long 
habituated to some of these provisional classifications. For example : 

1. What do you understand by: high-school or academic subjects; college 
admission subjects; cultural studies? What are the "professional studies" 
employed in the training of teachers? 

2. What studies, as you understand it, are included in, and what excluded 
from: the classics; the humanities; the practical arts; the social sciences; the 
fine arts? 

3. What specific kinds of education seem to you best to contribute to : mental 
training ; moral training ; education for citizenship ; education for leisure ; edu- 
cation for "parenthood"; education for "business"; education for home- 
making ? ' 

4. Should Greek, in your estimation, be studied by : prospective home- 
makers? Voters? Ladies of leisure? Ministers? Why, in each case? 

5. What distinctions seem to you valid between "general" and vocational 
education? Between physical and cultural education? 

VARIETIES OF OBJECTIVES 

As previously stated, the specific objectives of education are indefinitely 
numerous. It becomes indispensable to discussion, and to other treat- 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 345 

ments of them, that they be classified into groups by virtue of some kind 
of resemblances or differences. Without pressing the analogy too far, 
we can think of these objectives or specific purposes as falling, like plants 
and animals, into genera, species, varieties, and the like. 

Such phrases as "the three r's," "academic studies," "the school arts," 
and "the liberal arts" are familiar. The "humanities" or "humanistic 
studies" and the "classics" are old designations still frequently employed. 
Many other more or less convenient groupings are often used; for ex- 
ample : the sciences ; modern languages ; industrial arts ; athletics or sports ; 
the mathematical branches ; the fine arts. 

Less familiar, in some respects, are the "source groupings" of educa- 
tional activities frequently employed in early pages of this book, such 
as education of the home, the church, the shop (in a very generic sense 
covering all vocational participation), the school, the press, the stage, 
the library, the club, and playground, the police powers, and others. 

Philosophy and the psychology of a generation ago popularized classi- 
fications of educational purposes based upon the human parts or qualities 
primarily affected. This developed such categories as intellectual, physi- 
cal, moral, and even spiritual education; whilst not uncommonly, also, 
such terms as education of the emotions, of the will, of the sentiments, 
and of the feelings were found serviceable. Derived terms such as mental 
training, manual training, and physical culture have likewise been much 
used. 

The foregoing categories are not, properly, in many instances, classi- 
fications of objectives, so much as they are classifications of subjects of 
study and means of education, or of the personal qualities to be modified. 
The terms "modern languages" and "humanities" only vaguely imply the 
objectives actually expected to be realized through them. "Manual train- 
ing" and "intellectual education" obviously suggest processes rather than 
ends. 

In recent years some efforts have been made to classify educational 
processes in terms of their expected outcomes. Since education has 
evolved no scientific terminology of its own, and must therefore draw 
upon the vernacular for most of its terms, the classifications employed are 
often indeterminate and misleading. Their use frequently produces a 
pedantic jargon which seriously antagonizes intelligent laymen; never- 
theless, no other course now seems open. 

The Commission, on the Reorganization of Secondary Education 
classifies all the desirable objectives of school education under seven 
principal heads : physical education, vocational education, education for 



346 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

citizenship, education for good family membership, ethical training, educa- 
tion for leisure, and training in fundamental processes. All but two of 
these are quite obviously based upon ends to be served in society; and 
even the categories "ethical training" and "training in fundamental 
processes" imply such ends. 

Major classifications of objectives should be based upon ends expected 
to be realized — that seems the proper principle to be accepted on behalf of 
educational sociology. AH forms of education are processes or means 
- — to what specific ends of growth, training, power? These should be 
determining, first of all. Within the categories thus established, other 
classifications can be developed. For many purposes,- it is convenient 
and important to subclassify objectives by customary and practicable 
sources — home education, school education, and the like — as given above. 
Another cross-classification that seems of great importance because .of 
its bearings upon method is that already suggested between projective and 
developmental objectives (where purpose is held in view) or between 
play-level and work-level objectives (where method is chiefly under con- 
sideration). (It is recognized, of course, that these are not always cor- 
responding classifications ; nevertheless, it will be found that they serve 
well for practical purposes — which must be the justification of making 
classifications that do not pretend to complete scientific accuracy.) It is 
evident that, whereas classifications based either upon ends to be served 
or sources are classifications of kinds, the distinctions between alpha and 
beta objectives are apt to be in degree only, and hence, like differences be- 
tween hot and cold, large and small, involve frequent "twilight zones" 
where well defined dififerences can hardly be found. 

Social needs to be met give us our first and major basis of classifica- 
tion. What are these? Obviously, all social needs must be met by and 
through individuals. All societies expect these, in greater or less degree, 
to be: (a) healthy, strong, and physically enduring; (6) competent and 
industrious in vocation (which includes warlike defense and aggression) ; 
(c) friendly, cooperative, and dutiful toward other human beings and 
toward deiities; and {d) possessed of good tastes and suitable knowledge 
as part of personal grace and culture. 

FUNDAMENTAL CATEGORIES 

These four grouping of desirable human attributes, expected especially 
in adults, suggest these as useful primary classifications of educational ob- 
jectives : 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 347 

a. Physical Education, to include all those controls of growth, train- 
ing, and instruction, the determining purpose of which is to promote some 
form of health, bodily strength, bodily grace, or longevity. 

b. Vocational Education, to include all those controls of growth in 
experience, training, and instruction which are designed primarily to 
make the individual an effective worker in some one of the world's numer- 
ous forms of productive industry, defense, or other service. 

c. Social Education, to include all those controls of growth, and 
forms of moral, civic, or religious training and instruction, designed 
to make of the individual a good associate or federate, as friend, parent, 
citizen, cooperator, or in other social relationship toward man or God. 

d. Cultural Education, to include all those controls of growth, train- 
ing, and instruction designed primarily to extend individual knowledge 
and appreciation in desirable directions not imposed by physical, vocational, 
or social needs. 

The primary purposes of specific educational processes may in some 
cases be difficult to determine, since important secondary purposes may, 
by customary valuation, appear to stand in the foreground. Some ex- 
amples of these difficulties should have consideration here. 

In a third school grade a teacher undertakes to teach a nine-year-old boy : 
(a) that malaria is caused by germs conveyed by the bite of a certain 
kind of mosquito; (b) that lying is objectionable and intolerable to de- 
cent people; and (c) that "King Philip's War" was one of the severest 
of the struggles to which the early settlers of New England were sub- 
ject in their conquest of that region from the Indians. It would hardly 
be disputed that the purposes of these three specific educational aims 
fall respectively under the three heads of physical, social, and cultural 
education. 

What is, or should be, the primary purpose of school calisthenics? 
Of "social geography"? Of stenography in a commercial department? 
Of the study of Roman history? Here, again, classifications are prob- 
ably not difficult. 

But there are other subjects in which difficulties abound. What is, or 
should be, the primary purposes in teaching children handwriting, and 
its applications in composition? Such powers may incidentally contribute 
to physical well-being. Some vocations — not a very great number, prob- 
ably — present special necessities for good, speedy, or beautiful handwriting 
or written composition. Friendly intercourse and effective discharge of 
civic responsibilities are sometimes best accomplished through written 
communication. 



348 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

The common judgment, however, is that the man who can not write is 
seriously defective as respects the common culture that all civilized men 
should possess. A good instance of this is found in popular prejudices 
against defective spelling, which is, of course, simply a branch of "writ- 
ing." Fundamental objections to poor spelling are based, not upon con- 
victions that these contribute to poor health, poor compliance with law, 
or with lack of vocational success, — except in some half-dozen callings, 
— but upon prevailing standards of taste and appreciation. 

Again, what is the primary educational purpose to be served by 
"manual training" — or, let us say, a special branch of it like wood-work- 
ing — for boys thirteen years old ? It used to be assumed that the primary 
purpose was, or could be, vocational; but that notion is now generally 
discarded. Obviously, there are incidental health and social gains that 
can be made to accrue through it, but none of sufficient magnitude to indi- 
cate a primary function. 

Best informed opinion now finds the chief justification for abundant 
industrial and other practical arts opportunities for growing boys among 
the cultural objectives of education. Like travel, general reading, and 
photodrama, practical arts participation enriches experiences, extends ap- 
preciations, and develops the tests and interests that endow the broad and 
deep personal life. 

There are, of course, some forms of developmental education, as well 
as of training, the results of which apply generally. The child learns the 
vernacular speech to the ends of vocational, social, and cultural profi- 
ciency. Literacy has been at different times chiefly valued for vocational, 
religious, civic, and cultural ends. Up to the level "called for by the de- 
mands of an appropriate common culture," we may be assured now that 
reasonable literacy serves also vocational and civic ends. 

Outside the simple school arts, and certain basic forms of natural 
learning like speech, it is of the utmost importance, as will be shown 
later, that the actual objectives of any particular form of education 
be accurately determined. ■ Unless this be done, methods will almost cer- 
tainly be poor and results indeterminate. To what end, primarily, for 
example, should Spanish be studied in a public high school? Civic, voca- 
tional, or cultural ? We must know, in order to set right goals and choose 
right methods. It is sometimes claimed that the "social purpose" should 
govern in physical sports, just as it is sometimes claimed, on the other 
hand, that the ends of physical training should govern in so-called mili- 
tary training in schools. Possibly these are both absurd contentions; 
but how can that absurdity be demonstrated? Some persons justify 



OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION— METHODS OF ANALYSIS 349 

public support of vocational schools primarily on grounds of their con- 
tributions to civism; but is that not putting the cart before the horse? 

ACCESSORY CLASSIF'ICATIONS 

Attention will later be given to a variety of less important, but often 
serviceable, classifications of objectives, of which some, like the fore- 
going, are based upon perception of social needs to be met. Reference 
need be made here only to a few of them. 

Education for leisure, one of the large categories of the Commission 
on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, obviously focuses atten- 
tion upon an important need in modern life. It suggests special education 
for avocations, hobbies, and travel, and the elevation of tastes in read- 
ing, music, and nature study. Likewise it points the way to certain useful 
outcomes in adult life of early habituation to outdoor recreations and 
indoor social diversions. 

Distinctions can often be profitably made, as noted before, between 
those objectives of education that involve as their worth-while outcomes 
powers of execution, performance, or doing (as handwriting, spelling, 
silent reading, trigonometry, or a trade), and those others the values af 
which are found in developed appreciations (as appreciations of music, 
literature, nature, or science). To a substantial extent, this differentia- 
tion parallels another serviceable one between education for (superior) 
utilization, and education for production (since all persons utilize music, 
poetry, newspapers, furniture, and medical service, whilst only a few pro- 
duce each kind of such service). 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bagley, W. C. Educational Values (Ch. 6, 9, and 10). 

Book, W. F. The Intelligence of High-School Seniors (Ch. 15, Read- 
justment and Reforms Proposed). 

Davis^ Calvin O. High-School Courses of Study. 

Eliot, C. W. Educational Reform (Ch. 7, Can School Programs Be 
Shortened and Enriched? Ch. 18, The Function of Education in a 
Democratic Society). 

Henderson, C. H. Pay Day. 

Meriam, J. L. Child Life and the Curriculum (Ch. 5-7, Principles in 
the Making of Curricula). 

Swift, E. J. Mind in the Making (Ch. 3, The School and the Individual). 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 

THE history of education describes and interprets the particular 
events, stages, processes, and controlling purposes, including ideals, 
that have taken place or operated in particular periods and places.^ Educa- 
tional sociology is chiefly concerned with the generic facts and sociological 
principles and laws revealed in such study of past events. 

In analyzing education and its factors as a major social process in 
preceding chapters, it has been frequently informative and helpful to 
refer to educative processes found among primitive or earlier historic 
peoples. It is therefore neither necessary nor expedient to introduce here 
any considerable account of the evolution of education. For the scientific 
student of education such a study, if it could now be written, would doubt- 
less be of fascinating interest, as is the history of medicine to the physician, 
and the history of mining, metallurgy, war, and transportation to special- 
ists in those fields. But it is not clear that such study would possess other 
than cultural significance. It is probable that the story of the evolution 
of education would possess little more scientific value to modern educa- 
tional practice than would the history of medicine to the modern student 
of that subject. 

The following paragraphs, in part summarizing previously given details, 
are submitted primarily for the purpose of bringing into relief certain 
interpretations not heretofore emphasized. 

The sociological foundations of education rest on these basic facts : 
(a) the young of the human species is, in a biological sense, exceptionally 
"teachable" — that is, owing to its prolonged infancy, its large equipment 
of "instincts to learn," and its powers of speech and abstract thinking, it 
can learn more from experience, and especially from training, than can 
other organic beings; (&) the "elders" in any given group — and this 
includes even the slightly older or more experienced among children — are 

^ See P. Monroe, Textbook in the History of Education, for descriptive and inter- 
pretive survey of the stages and events in the evolution of various forms of edu- 
cation. Each chapter is followed by bibliography. 

350 



THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 351 

instinctively teachers — that is, they find great satisfaction in inducing, 
even compelHng, the younger or less experienced to learn at least some of 
the forms of behavior, varieties of skill, and facts of knovi^ledge that the 
elders possess (but under some circumstances this attitude is reversed and 
elders seek to prevent youngers from learning) ; and (c) the experience, 
discoveries, forms of behavior, and skills gradually acquired, are, among 
humans, transmitted as the social inheritance.^ 

Primitive social groups, having none of those specialized agencies that 
we call schools, nevertheless exhibit numberless varieties of education car- 
ried by parents, w^arriors, priests, w^ise men, and others. 

But many kinds of non-school education can also be observed in any 
family of to-day. In every home small children acquire speech, manners, 
simple moral standards, and a variety of skills — use of table utensils, 
dressing, vv^ashing. The boy on the small frontier farm easily learns to 
participate in the hundred elemental productive occupations — plowing, 
milking, ditching, horseshoeing, housebuilding, camp cooking — there 
carried on. In every home the children acquire from their parents a 
large variety of likes and dislikes, of ideals or aspirations, and of attitudes 
of repugnance for other persons or for other standards than their own. 

Many of the methods of primitive education can easily be observed also 
in the play life of children. In villages, and among the less exclusive of 
our city peoples, boys and girls beyond the ages of eight to ten mingle 
much with their fellows and thus create social groups of juniors. These 
groups, as every observant teacher sees and as every sensitive parent 
keenly feels, have forms of approved speech, behavior, and ideals that 
often clash with those approved by some, or occasionally all, home 
standards.^ 

Primitive education is, except for the ceremonial of initiation, largely 
a by-product of adult activities, vocational, cultural, and social. Because 
nearly all forms of family, clan, or horde life are simple and very accessible 
to the senses of the growing child, he constantly learns by observation, 
imitation, and incipient helping. Where men and women habitually fore- 
gathered separately for work or social intercourse, the younger children 
naturally associated chiefly with women. But sociologists have probably 
not yet done justice to the conditions under which those ancestors of 
civilized peoples who lived hundreds of centuries in the colder parts of 

^ Letourneau, L'Evolution de I'Education, comes nearest, among available books, 
to being a sociological interpretation. 

^ Consult K. Groos, The Play of Man, and J. Lee, Play in Education. 



352 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the north temperate zone developed their by-education. The long nights 
of winter and the climate certainly necessitated the spending of many 
hours in family groups around firesides during which minor games, 
music, and drama may have served somewhat for diversion, but where 
almost certainly the oft-repeated tale, story, or song must have been the 
choice means of whiling away time. The cultural values of this fireside 
education during the long ages of illiteracy can not now, of course, be 
fully evaluated. When some of these people became conquerors — in 
Greece, Italy, and everywhere in Europe during the early Christian cen- 
turies — the prestige and wealth of the leaders enabled them to demand 
specialists for their enlarged feasts and firesides. So the ancient processes 
culminated in the professional tellers of heroic tales, singers of heroic 
songs, and historians of tradition — bards and the like. 

In many parts of the world the initiation served important educational 
ends. It was a kind of combination of final examination and commence- 
ment, and was, very probably, often associated with a transition in the 
educational direction and control of the youth. At any rate, it is clear that 
in many primitive societies boys were required to undergo severe tests in 
order to demonstrate their fitness for the active life of hunter or warrior. 
While this was in fact a kind of vocational transition, it was natural also to 
think of it as a transition from youth to qianhood. 

The early stages of direct education have not yet been described for 
us in scientific fashion.* Early records tell of several varieties that seem 
to have become elaborately evolved from earlier beginnings. It is possible 
that priesthoods very early began to train novitiates in their practices of 
magic. Initiations into adult responsibilities doubtless always suggested 
the specialization of teachers of legend or specific behavior. Certainly 
some of the ancient crafts — metal working, pottery, building with stone — 
developed systematic apprenticeship education. 

But we have more information about military training in the early 
history than about other forms. Records of the past now available were 
largely produced under conditions of second- or third-degree conquest — 
that is, of enslavement or of enserfdom. This forced the development 
of professional military and governing classes, among whom the training 
of the young was frequently placed in the charge of specialists who could 
give needed time and attention. 

The early Persian, Spartan, Athenian, Roman, and Teutonic schooling 
was, in fact, specialized for ruling classes. 

* But see Letourneau, L'£volution de I'Education; A. J. Todd, The Primitive 
Family as an Educational Agency; and Starr, First Step in Human Progress. 



THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 353 



THE SOCIALIZATION OF EDUCATION '' 

The school, like the family, the church, the guild, and the party, has 
always been a social institution; that is, it has sprung from needs of group 
mechanisms, and has been expected in turn to reinforce group life. But, 
like those other institutions, schools have often been, imperfectly socialized. 
They have served partizan groups rather than whole groups, have been 
used to accentuate cleavages rather than to unite factions, and have inten- 
sified destructive competition and exploitation rather than enhanced large 
cooperations and democratic equalizations. 

It is a mistake to assume, as do many contemporary writers, that the 
schools of the past have been excessively individualistic. Certainly the 
schools of aristocratic families, or of strongly self-centered religious de- 
nominations, have not been that. True, their immediate and most visible 
aim was the strong individual — strong in arms, in martial virtues, in 
religious faiths, in classical learning, in mastery of science and art. But 
these forms of strength were, less immediately considered, always to 
redound to the strengthening of the castle, province, church, family, culture 
class, or other sect that used this education as a means. In no true 
sociological sense can the form^of education so vigorously promoted by 
Spartan or Persian, by guild of knights or guild of goldsmiths, by New 
England Protestant or French Jesuit, by Chinese state examinations or 
British boarding schools, by Mississippi Valley settlers or cotton-growing 
aristocrats, be characterized as individualistic. On the contrary, they 
have been most intensely social — but social for a "small group" — a partial 
group rather than the whole. Prussian education of 1800-1918 was cer- 
tainly the reverse of individualistic ; but, from the standpoint of inter- 
national relations, it, too, was excessively "packish," — that is, of and 
for the "small group," — even though in this case it was a group of forty 
million. 

Schools fostered by Christian denominations have at times, like Chris- 
tian teaching itself, been "human" or social in the largest sense. But, 
commonly, "mankind" has been too numerous and too diversified to make 
possible for long a real focusing of altruistic vision. Even very good 
Christians often relapse into thinking of men as Greek and barbarian, elect 
and non-elect, faithful and pagan. 

Public schools, at their best, have been nationalistic schools — that is, 

° See Smith, Educational Sociology (Part II, Educational Applications); and 
I. King, Social Aspects of Education (Ch. 11). 



354 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

designed to uphold and advance the state in its then cherished form of 
organization — here an ohgarchy crowned by the "divine right of kings," 
there a republic founded on the assumption vox populi vox Dei. 

What then, is the significance of the twentieth-century movement 
toward the socialisation of education? This movement in reality is com- 
pounded of many factors, some affecting the aims and some the methods 
of the schools. 

Education can be made , more social in aims when it seeks to evoke, 
inculcate, or strengthen the social virtues, and especially those not well 
provided for by extra-school agencies — home, church, vocation, etc. 

Organized education, in large numbers of earlier and medieval so- 
cieties, was carried on by what may generally be designated as guilds — • 
including under that term all occupational differentiations of societies 
which seek hereditary transmission of their vocations, or, like religious- 
guilds, take charge of the education of the recruits. 

Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, military, religious, profes- 
sional, craft, and trade guilds developed respectively the systems of educa- 
tion deemed best for their heirs and recruits. Naturally, what we should 
now characterize as vocational objectives predominated in this education. 
The boy of noble birth was long and carefully educated to be a knight, 
with all that such a calling implied of physical, moral, and cultural powers 
and appreciations. The son of the merchant or the boy apprenticed to 
the merchant likewise spent years in learning his profession. 

Apprenticeship in the trades began early, continued long, and was 
buttressed by a multitude of laws and customs. In some respects the 
processes by which to-day a boy with a "vocation" becomes a Catholic 
priest are reminiscent even in details of the processes that prevailed in 
the same field of work a thousand years ago. Apprenticeship, possibly 
of a somewhat degenerated sort, survived well into the nineteenth century 
in law and medicine in the United States and in public-school teaching 
in England. Even yet the guilds of law and medicine in' England exercise 
much influence over education and standards in those callings. The con- 
tinuation schools of certain German states owe their origins largely to 
the efforts of the modern representatives of industrial and commercial 
production to discharge their ancient guild responsibilities. 

Thus the processes and methods of guild education have probably been 
almost universal in certain stages of social evolution. Only in advanced 
forms of "nationalistic" evolution can the state supersede corporate and 
private endeavor in so complex a function. 



THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 355 



DIFFERENTIATION WITHIN CURRICULA 

The historic school was conceived only as a place of artificial learning. 
Its purposes or aims were essentially projective. It tolerated but did not 
welcome developmental activities at recesses, out-of-school hours, and in 
certain festive seasons. It even helped organize sports because they per- 
mitted "escape of steam" which would otherwise blow ofi: in class time. 

Then came the great innovators. They saw the desirability of using 
schools as means of promoting even natural learning — especially in the 
cases of orphaned children, babies from poor homes, boys and girls from 
crowded urban environments. Outside the school, children grow intel- 
lectually from contact with and experience in manipulating "objects." 
Why not effect learning in schools through realistic "objects"? As plants 
grow naturally in a sunny garden with good soil, why should not children 
grow bodily and spiritually in a children's garden made sunny and fertile 
by warm-hearted teachers and tempting equipment? Should not educa- 
tion culminate in the establishment of permanent "interests," and should 
not, therefore, its processes be interesting? Life's activities, spontaneously 
and gladly entered upon, are obviously educative; could they not be made 
much more so by being organized in the schools, with as little "denaturing" 
as possible? The world organizes its enterprises as projects; why not 
organize learning around educative projects akin to those in the extra- 
school world which are so naturally educative? Thus evolved the ideals, 
doctrines, and experiments of men like Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, 
Herbart, Dewey, and a host of others. 

Contemporary schools reflect, naturally, all sorts of survivals and 
many sorts of aspirations from this historic past. The spirit and aims 
of the kindergarten have greatly affected the primary school. The best 
elementary and secondary schools have gradually learned to approve and 
to include in their curricula activities, if not studies, of steadily lessening 
formalistic character. Modern schools, at their best, are something much 
more than prisons for enforced labor on the part of children. Play in 
its various species — physical, social, intellectual, solitary, cooperative, even 
competitive — is not now suspected by teachers as it once was. 

But the recent evolution of subjects and curricula has greatly compli- 
cated the problem of teachers and other educators. An old question is 
incessantly revived, and with added insistence that helpful answers be 
found: What is the aim of education? In other words: What are the 



356 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

schools really expected to accomplish? How shall their total task, their 
several specific tasks, and their work from day to day be defined, measured, 
and ordered? 

As elsewhere pointed out, educators are less certain of their aims even 
than they were in former years — less certain, of course, because more 
critical, less reliant upon belief and dogma. They are also confused as 
to methods. It is hard to escape the conviction that the processes which 
fit plastic human nature, with its tremendous biological inheritance hardly 
altered from the days of naked savagery in the wilderness, must involve 
much discipline, drill, hard training, strict enforcement of rule, and steady 
habituation to work, if the needs of civilized society are to be served. On 
the other hand are the multiplying proponents of the rights of children 
to childhood — that is, to the natural growth, the unforced development, 
the self-realization that their original nature makes possible. 

The desire for panaceas is doubtless at the root of many of our con- 
temporary difficulties in educational science. Men emerging into the plane 
of rational thinking have always sought simple keys wherewith to unlock 
the doors of complex phenomena. Philosophy has sought its primordial 
substances, alchemy its philosopher's stone, medicine its panaceas, old age 
its fountain of youth. Half -evolved sciences like education, politics, and 
industrial psychology find men's hearts still set on magic formulae, catch- 
words, and pet doctrine. 

Educators still persist in seeking a simple formula that will state the 
aim of education. As well ask with the metaphysicians, "What is the 
aim of life itself ?" We can, of course, please our respective fancies from 
a wide range of speculative formulae, each of which, in the last analysis, 
is probably about as good and about as bad as any of the others. "Educa- 
tion is life itself"; "education is preparation for life"; "education is de- 
velopment." We can say with confidence that "the aim" of education is : 
character; self-realization; social efficiency; all-round development; prepa- 
ration for social living; culture; godliness; the full development of the 
spiritual nature ; the training of the mind ; and many others. These are 
all true. Given some liberty in the definition of terms and the postulation 
of necessary effects from implied causes, we can confidently say of any 
one of them that it is all the truth. 

The trouble is that none of these formulations can be made to give effec- 
tive guidance to practice. They furnish no satisfactory tests of the com- 
parative efficacy of different aims, different means, different methods. 
When we come to translate them into the concrete realities exhibited in 
every-day life, they are illusive rather than directive. 



THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 357 

We can get ourselves on solid ground by recognizing what are, in the 
estimation of the best minds of our time, the practical values of life as 
discussed in Chapter XXII. Common sense has recognized for many years 
the great desirability of having all men and women able to read, write, and 
"cipher" up to some reasonable standard of proficiency. We are all agreed 
that good follows teaching children the simple facts of modern hygiene. 
We agree that good results from a reasonable amount of physical play 
by the young. It is well for society, and well for the individuals imme- 
diately concerned, that some people should be trained to apply trigo- 
nometry, to read Japanese, to conduct research in chemistry, to draft 
mechanical designs, and to write fiction. 

EXPANSION OF EDUCATION 

Multiplication of educational offerings takes place in all progressive 
societies. The time and learning abilities of all children or youths are 
limited. There was a time, so many believe, when it- was within the 
powers of an able-minded and favorably circumstanced man to learn all 
that was then known of science, history, languages, literature, and phi- 
losophy. But the expansion of knowledge that has taken place in recent 
centuries, and conspicuously since the invention of printing, has been 
such that no person, however much of genius, could master more than 
a small fraction of it in a lifetime. It is claimed that no one person 
can cover the now known knowledge in such fields as biology, chemistry, 
or archaeology. 

A boy entering school at six years of age, and continuing steadily at 
work until twenty-two, — the usual age of graduation from a liberal arts 
college, — will have at his disposal for educational purposes — if he give 
due attention to recreation and sociability — fewer than twenty thousand 
hours. Set against this the wealth of educational offerings now available 
in the various grades of schools ! 

Even in the earlier years, according to the desires of his parents and 
teachers, this boy can take much or little of music, of drawing, of indus- 
trial arts, of physical training, and of gardening. They may or may not 
desire him to begin early the study of one or more foreign languages, 
some of the more advanced phases of mathematics, or some department of 
science. 

On the level of secondary education, even including grades seven and 
eight, scores of studies, all attractive and some indispensable, according 
to the interests and prospects of learners, are available. Improvement in 



358 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

oral and written English, preparation for the political duties of citizenship, 
extension of personal culture in the many departments of literature, 
history, natural science, foreign languages, mathematics, graphic and 
musical arts, and social science — all these offer numberless opportunities 
for education. 

On the college level the number and variety of offerings in the modern 
institution becomes bewildering, as examination of liberal arts college 
catalogues shows. 

"What Knowledge Is of Most Worth?" — the query set by Herbert 
Spencer — is a question that haunts every progressive educator to-day. 
We hear much about alternative courses, elective studies, and the need for 
educational guidance. The psychologist easily passes on from his dis- 
coveries of the widely varying native powers of children and adolescents 
to recommendations for their different educational treatment. 

It is this situation that forces educators to turn to the social sciences 
for guidance in the making of curricula. The question "What should be 
the aims of education?" at any particular level, or for any specified group, 
can be answered only through scientific consideration, first of the desirable 
objectives in individual and community that can be served by any or 
many of the hundreds of educational means (subjects, courses, methods) 
now available; and second of the objectives that are found practicable 
when due consideration has been given to natural and other limitations 
in the powers of learners, and to limitations in the resources of the com- 
munity for the conduct of education. 

Sociology or social economy gives many direct approaches to the 
study of educational needs. These studies reveal, for example, the facts 
as to the healthfulness of the members of a given society. Problems of 
improving the situations found take us at once, into the fields of medicine, 
governmental quarantine, employers' liability, and other non-educational 
departments. Early attention is focused, however, on education as a 
means of preventing ill health, of promoting physical vigor, and of paving 
the way for more effective cooperative action in the future. Health author- 
ities studying sociological situations related to physical well-being are 
thus constantly setting educational objectives and tasks for the schools — ■ 
for all levels of schools, too, from day nursery and kindergarten to the 
higher professional schools. 

The aims of education have always been derived from some empirical 
study of social needs. We can readily understand ancient conquerors 
determining the needs of aristocratic education from a consideration of 
the governing and military tasks they had assumed. Where the general 



THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION 359 

acceptance of certain religious tenets and rituals is believed to be im- 
portant, naturally these are instilled through whatever kinds of schools 
are there available. If much supposedly valuable knowledge and power 
is stored in a non-vernacular language, — as was Latin in the Renaissance 
period, and as is English to-day to the Chinese, — naturally training in 
that language is deemed of very great importance. 

A scientific social economy wants more and better : social control ; use 
of leisure ; vocational competency ; international f riendlin.ess ; conservation 
of natural resources ; art appreciation and interests ; temperance ; thrift 
and conservation of capital ; facilities for childhood and adult recreation ; 
municipal government ; suffrage ; religiousness ; interest in agricultural 
production; and scores of other worthy objectives. The most universal 
agency wherethrough it is urged that these are to be achieved is educa- 
tion — an education believed to be especially possible somewhere between 
infancy and manhood. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Davidson, T. History of Education (Ch. 4, Part III, The Outlook). 
Dexter, E. G. History of Education in the United States (Ch, 3 and 4, 

Savage and Barbarian Education). 
Laurie, A. Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education. 
Quick, H. Educational Reformers. 
Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 11, The Social Codes). 
Webster, H. Primitive Secret Societies (Ch. 3, The Secret Rites, and 

Ch. 4, The Training of the Novice). 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
PHYSICAL EDUCATION: SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EXPERIENCE with illness, accident, premature' death, and physical 
defectiveness falls to the lot of every one. Doctors, pharmacists, and 
sanitary inspectors play large parts among civilized peoples. It is widely 
believed that the more civilized we become the more are we the victims 
of health derangements. Too little work impairs the physical resistance 
of some, whilst too much work seems to cripple others. It is alleged thai 
many middle-aged Americans suffer, and even die, from diseases conse- 
quent on overeating. It is certain that some Americans, as well as multi- 
tudes of persons in other lands, die from diseases caused by undernourish- 
ment, 

Man has fought ill health and accident all through his long evolution. 
His instincts, like those of other animals, helped him in part to avoid 
cliffs, water, beasts of prey, fire, and some poisonous plants. Probably 
they helped him but little to avoid infective diseases, except, possibly, in 
the case of infected wounds. But long ago he evolved a host of health 
customs — many of which, we now see, were profitless superstitions, out- 
growths of his first attempts at a rational understanding of his multiplying 
health problems. In the course of a few hundred centuries modern medi- 
cine was produced. 

Long ago, too, our ancestors appreciated the need of strong, enduring, 
and skillful bodies among men for fighting and hunting. Likewise, they 
prized beautiful bodies among both men and women. Various means 
were evolved of training the young and decorating the matured. Probably 
there have been long periods in the past, like those told of in Spartan 
and Athenian history, when "body culture," of one kind or another, was 
more highly developed than it has been in modern times. 

Modern medicine thinks more in terms of prevention than of cure of 
ill health and accident. Nations and cities develop machinery to arrest 
infection, and to take public charge of some kinds of infected persons. 
The teaching of hygiene becomes increasingly the responsibility of parents, 
teachers, and social workers. In a thousand ways we seek by education to 
conserve health and to build up bodies capable automatically of resisting 
disease. We are on the road to the socialization of medicine and physical 
education, as the reader will find himself already somewhat aware in 
answering these questions: 

360 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 361 

1. What is the sociological significance of compulsory vaccination? Quar- 
antine of scarlet fever and diphtheria in urban homes? Quarantine of yellow 
fever in ports ? State-supported sanatoriums for the tubercular ? 

2. What scientific facts important to contemporary physical education are 
now available with regard to : the prevention and cure of hookworm ; the pre- 
vention of yellow fever and malaria; the prevention of plague, cholera, typhus, 
anthrax ? 

3. What seem to be some of the collective responsibilities of citizens for 
the diminution or prevention of typhoid, tuberculosis, alcoholism, venereal dis- 
ease, and infant mortality? What parts are school and special education, at 
their best, now playing in these matters? 

4. What information do you possess as to the increase of average longevity 
and the reduction of death rates in modern civilized countries? 

5. What knowledge do you possess as to the extent of the use of "patent" 
medicines in America ? Why are these slightly advertised in best magazines 
and largest newspapers, and very much advertised in smaller newspapers, and 
especially in certain parts of the country? 

6. Assume a case-group of twenty city-reared girls of less than average 
mental ability, having had rather old-fashioned and inferior schooling through 
the sixth grade, and coming from inferior, half-slum-like environment. At 
fifteen years of age they are about to take up regular work in a textile fac- 
tory, working forty-eight hours a week. Most of them have now fair to 
poor health and low appreciations of self-care. 

a. What would you estimate to be the most significant "shortages" — of 
knowledge, habit, ideal, physical development — of these girls for (i) the work 
they are soon to do, (2) their family life, often to thirty years later, and 
(3) their general happiness? 

b. Given fifty days and eight hours a day, all to be devoted to laying founda- 
tions for future physical well-being, during all of which you could control 
the regimen, and guide the physical education, of these girls, what programs 
would you set up? 

7. Does it appear to you that civilized human beings are usually possessed 
of more or less "physical well-bein^' than the uncivilized? Are human 
beings less "physically well" than wild animals ? Domesticated animals ? Wild 
plants? Domesticated plants? Using the terms "morbidity" to cover all 
kinds of departures from physical well-being (except accident) and "prema- 
ture mortality" to indicate unseasonable death, what do you estimate to be 
"morbidity" and "premature mortality" rates at dififerent age levels of various 
case-groups of Americans ? Is there more morbidity among women than men ? 
Rural adults than urban adults ? Manual workers than brain workers ? White 
than colored? Recent immigrant than old stock? Of low native intelligence 
than high? What replies to these questions can be deduced from the "draft 
figures" (in report of Surgeon-General) ? 



362 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

8. What does biology indicate as to probable evolutionary (adaptive) changes 
in the human body since the advent of beginnings of civilization — perhaps ten 
to fifteen thousand years ago? What of probable adaptive changes since up- 
right posture vv^as assumed? 

What evidences seem to be presented by women that the upright position is 
not yet fully "natural"? By men? Children? Do v^e seem to suffer diseases 
of atrophy (easy lodgment of pathogenic bacteria in tissues and glands of jaw, 
teeth, tonsils, nasal cavity, intestines) because of relative disuse imposed -by 
cooked and concentrated foods ? 

Compared with primitive man, do civilized adults probably tend to overwork 
or underwork these organs: lungs, eyes (for long ranges), eyes (for short 
ranges), kidneys, heart, "nerves"? Are the following forms of work relatively 
natural or unnatural (in terms of native adaptation of the body to them) : 
counter salesmanship ; typewriting ; elementary school teaching ; work in steel 
mills; farming; kitchen service; watch repairing; seamanship? 
■ 9. What are the varieties of pathogenic bacteria known to you? Which of 
these are probably omnipresent, but do serious damage only to the weak? 
Which are capable of successfully attacking the strongest, but are usually 
kept at .a distance by sanitary measures? (Consider separately agencies of: 
measles ; syphilis ; yellow fever ; typhus ; bubonic plague ; sleeping sickness 
(African); typhdid; tuberculosis; wound sepsis; colds; malaria; pyorrhea; 
influenza.) What of agencies of hookworm, whooping cough, ringworm, 
chicken-pox, diarrhea? 

What are effects of modern travel, living in cities, immigrations, etc., on 
distribution of pathogenic organisms? How offset by quarantine? What can 
physical education do to promote relative immunization? Or effective re- 
sistance? Toward which diseases? In what directions is this process ap- 
parently useless? 

10. From the standpoint of physical functioning, what are the earliest ages 
at which normal "mating" of the sexes can take place ? What are the re- 
strictions and postponements imposed by civilized society? Why? What are 
the "strains" and liabilities to "pathological" activities thus entailed? Why is 
"sex hygiene" an important objective in modern education? What are its 
unsettled problems ? 

11. Is it probable, in view of the evolutional history of man, that "physical 
work" (meaning chiefly persistent routine use of the "large muscles" as now 
seen in many forms of outdoor manual work) is an essential means of pro- 
ducing the development of organs, qualities of endurance, and powers of 
effective metabolism characteristic of optimum physical "well-being"? Had 
the children who formerly "grew up" on farms ample opportunities for such 
"developmental work" ? Do modern u-rban children now find such means ? 
Under what conditions? Contrast boys and girls. Are the contributions to 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 363 

best physical development of play and of work probably the same? From 
which, in all probability, come mostly the qualities of persistent endurance 
required in adult life? 

Do children from ages seven to fifteen in cities now "work" with their "small 
muscles" and "nerves" ? In what ways ? Is such "work" probably relatively 
"natural" or artificial, from the standpoint of the body as we inherit it ? 

12. Why do warlike and conquering peoples relegate to slaves, serfs, and 
peasants low forms of manual work? Why, as wealth and security increase, 
do they prefer to have their wives, daughters, and female entertainers freed 
from all "manual work" ? What are to-day the ideals of men as regards heavy 
manual work? Of women? Of men for their favorite women? 

What are the immediate effects of "freedom from toil" on young women? 
Their physical beauty? Strength of body? Powers of normal parturition? 
Susceptibility to disease? Do such women usually overeat? Oversleep? 
What proportion are usually valetudinarians at ages thirty-five to sixty? 

Is the ideal of a "life of leisure" popular with young American men to-day? 
With young women? What are the probable consequences to young women 
to-day of working for wages and at the same time striving to "keep as beauti- 
ful" as do women of leisure ? What on bodily strain ? What through health 
handicaps — dress, shoes, complexion, long hair, insufficient sleep? 

13. What kinds of strains upon bodily organs are imposed by the demands 
for foresight, thrift, life-career planning, and the like, imposed by modern 
life? Contrast the fears of primitive man with those (as solicitudes, ap- 
prehensions, worries) of modern man as to pervasiveness, effects on digestion, 
recreation, cheerfulness, "nerves." What are 'probably physical effects of the 
cares that now harass middle-aged, middle-class men and women relative to : 
savings, vocations, children, opinions of associates, competition for distinc- 
tion, etc. ? 

14. How can "educative processes" contribute to physical well-being? Con- 
sider separately : 

c. Instruction in the known facts of hygiene. 

b. Training in hygienic practices (to what extent practicable in the limited 
hours of school?). 

c. Development of active ideals of health, strength, endurance, grace, skill. 

d. Conservation of sanitary conditions for school "work" — lighting, seating, 
rest or recreation periods, ventilation, print, tools, dust, hours, etc. (Should 
"food nurture" be included? Sleep? Physical cleanliness? Safety on 
streets?) 

e. Medical inspection for communicable diseases and for chronic defects, 
leading to public or private provision of remedies. 

/. Direct and purposive reactions on home conditions and procedures, from 
teachers, physicians, and health nurses through messages, visitation, etc. 



364 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

g. Provision, through or under auspices of schools, of means of "physical 
development." Separately consider: physical play (with material and social 
accompaniments?) ; nurture; rest and sleep; physical work. 

h. Specific corrective physical training of defectives — heart, spine, underde- 
veloped limbs. 

i. "General physical training." (Is there such a thing? What should be 
controlling objectives?) 

y. Specific physical training for known needs of adult life — war, (named) 
vocation, maternity, resistance to (named) disease, social art {e.g., dancing). 

15. Do the procedures proper to vocational education contribute to physical 
education? Is physical education to be regarded as an essential or accessory 
means to vocational education ? Many vocations — bookkeeping, chemical fac- 
tory work, farming in malarial districts, school teaching, etc. — impose par- 
ticular strains on strength and health. Should preparation to meet these be 
given in special vocational schools or in schools of general education ? 

Do the procedures proper to social (moral, civic, religious) education con- 
tribute to physical education? Directly, or incidentally? Is physical education 
to be regarded as an essential or as an accessory factor in social education? 
Does physical soundness usually produce moral soundness ? Are the physically 
unsound generally morally unsound as well? Are the purely physical sports 
essential means of "socializing" the individual ? In a few particular respects 
important in adolescent life, or generally? Does the "socialized" character 
of yourself and your adult acquaintances — women teachers, society women, 
prosperous farmers, unionized working-men — seem to prove this? 

Does physical education make important contributions to cultural education ? 
Directly? Indirectly? Are the "cultured" adults among your acquaintances 
usually possessed of more, or less, "physical well-being" than the uncultured? 
Judged by some of the world's most productive workers, — Csesar, Leo XIII, 
Darwin, Spencer, Parkman, and numberless others, — how would you revise 
the adage "mens sana in cor pore sano"? 



MAN S PHYSICAL HERITAGE 

Nature gives safety, health, and prolonged life somevi^hat more to her 
organic creatures of the plant and animal world than she gives accident, 
disease, and death — otherwise there would be no life on earth. To the 
superficial understanding it may appear that wild plants and animals are 
seldom "sick," and that death comes to them mostly from accident or 
conquest by others. Similarly, it seems to us that domesticated plants 
and animals, as well as man himself, are much subject to diseases. But 
our easy inferences here are only slightly reliable. 

Biologists find that where an organic species has existed and reproduced 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 365 

in a fairly stable environment for long periods — which may well be into 
hundreds of thousands of years — it tends steadily to become better 
"adapted." This means, among other things, that the species becomes 
steadily more successful in resisting its ancient enemies in that environ- 
ment — perhaps in striking a sort of "symbiotic compromise" with them — 
and in sustaining itself in fairly normal ways , Before man intrudes upon 
new regions with his novel varieties of disease germs and predatory 
activities — from the standpoint of the "old inhabitants" — it is probable 
that rabbits, deer, passenger pigeons, pines, and grasses lived very healthy 
lives, on the whole. It is very possible that the wild progenitors of our 
domesticated sheep, turkeys, horses, swine, and apples were less subject 
to disease than their specialized descendants, if for no other reason than 
that they had long been adapting themselves to their environment through 
processes by which "the most fit to survive" had reproduced and sustained 
to maturity the larger number of offspring. 

But if the environment is changed, or if a new enemy comes in, — which 
in itself constitutes a change of invironment, obviously, — then the wild 
creatures have their troubles no less than the tame. America, biologically 
a kind of simple and uncontaminated continent as contrasted with Eurasia, 
has been peculiarly a sufferer from these disturbances of old balanced 
environments. The whites brought diseases which, like measles, were not 
very deadly to the invaders, but acted as a scourge to the invaded. San 
Jose scale, boll weevil, hog cholera, and chestnut blight bring long seasons 
of ill health to certain plant and animal species. 

But domestication may itself be the chief cause of disease, since it 
changes the conditions under which creatures grow and habituate them- 
selves. Domesticated plants and animals, because they are special- 
ized to certain purposes, and perhaps concentrated in certain areas, 
fail to develop adequate resisting powers— to lions, or bacteria, or cold — 
and hence, unless artificially protected, fall easy victims to adverse 
conditions. 

Domesticated man is the most domesticated of all creatures, in one 
very real sense of the word. He tries to adapt himself to more different 
environments than any other species. He himself produces artificial 
changes in his environments, which no other creatures can do. Small 
wonder, therefore, that he must wage a constant struggle with diseases 
and with accidents that are superinduced by the artificial conditions he 
has created for himself. Here are some of the "artificial" necessities 
he has, figuratively speaking, imposed upon his physical body in order 
to achieve other, and presumably more valuable, "goods" : 



366 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

1. He has assumed the upright posture. 

2. He has become omnivorous and dependent upon concentrated and 
partly predigested foods. 

3. He has divested himself of hair and taken to clothes as body covering. 

4. He travels and intercommunicates so much that his pathogenic 
bacteria and protozoa are distributed widely. 

5. He has developed extensive necessities of using his eyes at short 
range. 

6. He artificially heats his living places. 

7. He has compelled postponement of sex mating. 

8. He has made routine work, often of very "unnatural" kinds, such 
as tillage, mining, manufacturing, bookkeeping, dish washing, and writing, 
a necessity. 

9. He tends to increase "nervous" at the expense of "large muscle" 
work. 

10. He has compelled large numbers of women to specialize toward 
increasing their "decorative" functions. 

11. He has permitted and promoted conservation of those born weak 
and those who acquire weakness, and has even aided them in the perpetua- 
tion of their own kind. 

ARTIFICIAL PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 

TTie upright posture was probably evolved as a human quality many 
hundreds of thousands of years ago. Doubtless it gave a multitude of 
advantages in the struggle to survive, among them being : freeing of hands 
and arms, thus permitting the use of clubs, missiles, and other tools ; and 
providing superior carriage for the enlarged brain. But the process en- 
tailed severe physical disabilities on a body structure seemingly adapted 
originally to quadrupedal or quadrumanous positions. These disabilities 
fall especially heavily upon the reproductive organs of woman and the 
abdominal sustaining walls of men. In spite of considerable adaptation 
that has doubtless taken place over the centuries, men still suffer much 
from hernia, and women from displacements due to abnormal strains 
imposed upon the hereditary body structure. Possibly some digestive 
and circulatory disturbances are aggravated also by the upright posture. 
Educators find frequent need of correcting posture defects in the young. 

The digestive system of man possesses many limitations, due to its 
archaic adaptations. Barbarous and civilized men seek constantly for 
more concentrated and energy-giving foods, and ease of digestibility has 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 367 

long been promoted through the anciently domesticated arts of cooking. 
Century by century, therefore, he creates new conditions for his old 
digestive organs. By careful study and attention he can keep them from 
trouble, but the task is a serious one, and apparently becomes more difficult 
and delicate as new conditions of habitat, work, or nutrition are assumed. 
A late and, perhaps, unexpected stage is the modern cultured woman's 
alleged inability to nourish her infant in natural ways, thus putting back 
to the very gateway of life the struggle to maintain digestive health in the 
face of biologically novel conditions. 

Artificial body coverings, for decoration, protection against weather 
and brambles, and as a means of carrying supplies, necessitate some 
redistribution of the waste-disposing and temperature-regulating functions 
of the skin. Under some circumstances, probably, additional burdens are 
thrown on lungs and kidneys, Man's artificial adaptation to strange en- 
vironments has, outside the tropics, been achieved in part by his adoption 
of clothing. Civilized man heavily clothes even his infants and small 
children, thus depriving their bodies, not only of stimulating contact with 
air of fluctuating temperatures and humidities, but also of considerable 
freedom of movement. How far scientific hygiene should put to the 
account of clothes a variety of prevalent susceptibilities to colds, nervous 
derangements, and lassitudes, as well as the other minor or major ail- 
ments of highly civilized peoples, it is impossible yet to say. But there 
can be little doubt that we pay heavy prices in vigor and normal well- 
being for the advantages purchased through clothing. Perhaps a hygieni- 
cally wiser generation than ours will find better adjustments of gains and 
losses here than we have yet learned. 

Microorganisms of various kinds prey upon the living human body. 
In many cases these, apparently, persist, apart from their human hosts, 
only in certain regions. But the effects of trade, the migrations of men, 
and the congestion of populations in large cities are constantly to dissem- 
inate these lower animal and plant breeders of disease. The causative 
agents of such communicable diseases as measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis, 
scarlet fever, syphilis, and of numerous afflictions of nose and throat, 
seem now to be almost universally distributed. Civilized states have learned 
to arrest the spread of cholera, bubonic plague, yellow fever, and some 
others. Influenza epidemics start periodically from some obscure center, 
perhaps in northwest Europe, and sweep round the globe, in spite, as 
yet, of all quarantines. Some silent "carrier" of typhoid bacteria from 
time to time infects a collective water or milk supply, and a local epidemic 
must be fought. 



368 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Primitive man, knowing nothing of the origins of his "germ" diseases, 
could only submit to them and hope to acquire, in the course of long 
generations, by the survival of the more resisting, a certain immunity — 
as did the peoples of Europe and Asia, apparently, toward measles, the 
dwellers in central Africa toward malaria, and the Chinese toward typhoid. 
Sometimes crude devices of antiseptics or aseptics were, half super- 
stitiously, evolved ; and sometimes the expulsion of the infected, as in 
the Biblical case of lepers, may have helped. 

But even in prehistoric times it must often have happened that the 
migrations of conquest, and the penetrations of trade, brought in their 
wake germs of diseases of great virulence to peoples who for long had 
not been subject to them. Contemporary man now accepts the neces- 
sities of migrations, especially those of peaceful nature. Steamer and 
railway trains incessantly thread their ways between cities. Man and 
commodities are certain to bear the seeds of many diseases. Only a few 
can as yet be arrested by quarantine. All over the civilized world, medicine 
and education now unite forces to enable man to do successful battle with 
his microscopic enemies.' The best means are found to be various — per- 
haps never quite alike for any two types of disease. In some cases the 
best resistance is the well nourished, robust body. In others the causative 
agent must be extirpated or imprisoned in one area. In still other cases 
artificial immunity procured through inoculation is most effective. 

In the more progressive countries man long ago exterminated those 
larger beasts that preyed upon him and his possessions. But only recently 
has he developed knowledge and tools equal to the task of fighting the 
insects that so largely consume his food, and the bacteria and protozoa that 
devastate and poison his body. Now it is certain that, except in rare in- 
stances, only collective effort — extending even to various specific forms 
of international action — can enable him successfully to wage war on these 
enemies. Nowhere is the adage "Man liveth not unto himself alone" 
more applicable. Here again we are simply paying a price for civiliza- 
tion — for security, health; and happiness. The price is heavy, and only 
large returns will justify the outlay. 

"The eye" is, obviously, an organ of much sensitiveness, having in mind 
not merely the nervous structures required for its functioning, but also 
the numerous small muscles essential to its flexible focusing. It may be 
doubted whether civilized man uses his eyes more in general than did his 
long line of early ancestors. But undoubtedly he uses them far more at 
the short ranges required for reading, writing, needlework, and many 
kinds of handicraft production. And, wisely or unwisely, we impose not 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 369 

a little of this work on children from six to twelve years of age.' The 
eyes become, inevitably, severely overworked organs. Fortunately, science 
has here found aids of the most decided usefulness for print-reading 
moderns. 

Man's optimum adaptation is probably to only one type of climate, as 
is contended by Huntington. Hence, when he seeks to live in regions 
not favored by this "best" climate, he must pay the price in various ways — 
in long periods of semi-hibernation in the far north, in the diminished 
vitality of the torrid zone, and in poorly adjusted dietaries in others. 

Under conditions recently evolved among the more civilized peoples, 
elaborate housing and the heating of resting and working places creates in 
effect highly artificial climates to offset the rigors of natural climate. The 
wealthy woman of Chicago or Boston now spends nearly all her winter 
hours in warm and often very dry air. She travels in heated cars and 
automobiles, and heavily wraps herself in furs and overshoes, even for 
short walks. Even schools now seek to provide closed, warmed, and 
artificially ventilated places for gymnastics and other physical exercise. 

The ultimate consequences to physical vigor and health of thus perpet- 
ually "softening" our climate are still probably but half apprehended by 
science. In part, of course, our housing and heating, like our clothing, 
serve to release energy, time, and interest toward the realization of other 
"goods." But from time to time we may discover that the price being 
paid, either in the health of those now living, or in their failure to have 
strong progeny, is excessive. It is probable that among the causes con- 
tributing to the morbidity and "defunctionalization" of modern educated 
and prosperous woman after she has passed adolescence, her addiction to 
the "soft" life of furs, steam heat, and warmed cars must be given im- 
portant place. 

Mating or marriage interacts upon the physical vitality of adults in 
numberless respects. As respects no other function has man found it 
more necessary to "domesticate" or "artificialize" himself in order to 
attain to the goods of advanced human life. The mating instincts and 
powers obviously mature, or at least become functional, in adolescence. 
But somewhere far back, perhaps under the necessities of conserving 
powers and interests for warfare, men found it expedient to hold their 
warriors to celibacy and continence well into young manhood. Similarly 
it long ago became expedient to enjoin chastity upon young women. 

Not always, even among civilized peoples, has there persisted the 
tendency to postpone marriage far beyond the "natural" season for it. 
One must infer that among people living chiefly by tillage of the soil — 



370 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Ireland, India, and China give examples — there has often prevailed gen- 
eral approval of early marriage — so early, indeed, that no considerable 
"strains of continence" have been imposed upon young men and women. 

But, under conditions now familiar, the large majority of men do not 
marry until some time between twenty-four and thirty years of age; 
whilst the modal age of marriage for educated women seems to fall 
between twenty-one and twenty-six. This means a long period — five to 
fifteen years — during which approvable men and women should be con- 
tinent. The moral temptations of this period are commonly appreciated, 
and often carefully provided for; but the attendant hazards to health, 
strength, and future virility involved are probably as yet but slightly 
understood. The price that has long been paid for deferred marriage 
in prevalent vice, illegitimacy, and permanent celibacy has been a heavy 
one. But nearly all the conditions of civilized life — adequate education, a 
proper start in life, the secure founding and maintenance of a family — 
seem to necessitate it. We may not expect to go backward in these 
matters ; we must go forward, but with clear understanding of, and, as 
far as possible, forearming against, the consequences. 

Work, of one kind or another, has always been the lot of man, as of 
every other species that makes its way in the world. But domesticated 
man has modified his own work no less than he has modified that of the 
horses, oxen, elephants, camels, and dogs that he has tamed. The "work" 
of primitive man is much like the play of boys during and after puberty — 
sporadic, often intense, and bent on immediate goals. Before tillage of 
the soil became a chief means of subsistence for particular peoples, it is 
readily apparent that their activities in hunting, fishing, nut gathering, 
herding, and fighting their fellows were of this irregular, eager, and 
driving character. The men, even more than the women, must "keep 
fit" and store up energy; when the occasion for a hunt, foray, expedition, 
or wild harvesting arose, they must be prepared to undertake it with 
resolution, if not a certain fierceness. It is well known that all savages 
loathe "steady work" ; that they work well for short intervals, after which 
they crave a holiday or vacation. 

In the biological sense, therefore, civilized man has had to adopt what 
has always been relatively "unnatural" work. He has had to wage a 
persistent campaign with his adolescent boys to "break them in" to habits 
of steady work. When frontiers were still open, large numbers of these 
boys ran away to become hunters, cowboys, and settlers, in the hope of 
escaping unremitting and unattractive toil at home. 

Doubtless men in large numbers found steady toil a necessity when 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 371 

they began to till the soil for a living. Conquest and enslavement of 
soil-tilling peoples by warrior guilds or tribes increased routine labor and 
drudgery. Mining, quarrying, extensive building of forts and temples, 
lumbering, ship rowing, and other forms of "steady work" evolved apace. 
The "mechanical revolution" caused the gathering into factories or on 
railroads processes of bodily labor in the weaving of cloth, the forging 
of metals, the shaping of wood, and the portering of freight, which had 
long been going on in a dispersed fashion. 

Civilized man has had to adapt himself to routine labor — which is in 
a sense as "unnatural" for him as is the "work" of Flanders dogs or 
American horses. The body of a warrior is now "chained" to a factory 
lathe. The spirits of hunters are buried away in the men who spend a 
daily six or seven hours, year in and year out, taking down coal in the 
damp, gassy air of a mine. The man who sits all day on a stool, keeping 
books, differs physiologically hardly at all (in his beginnings) from those 
of his progenitors who fought and fished and roved the earth one hundred 
centuries ago. 

How far is man biologically adaptable to routine work, or how far has 
he become adapted to some of its older forms — e.g., wood getting, tillage, 
and sea fishing — by the few centuries during which selection has been 
favoring certain types ? We do not know. But these things seem certain : 
many kinds of routine work can easily lead to physical and, perhaps no 
less, to "spiritual" ills, if not on the one hand carefully regulated as to 
long hours, strains, and other conditions adverse to prolonged good health, 
and if not, on the other hand, compensated by systematic recreative activi- 
ties designed to give wholesome exercise to neglected functions of muscles, 
nerves, and social instincts. 

Civilized man must increasingly use power-driven machinery as a 
means of doing the work whereby rising standards of living can be main- 
tained. Power-driven machinery inevitably entails division of productive 
process, "quantity production," standardized parts, and the other con- 
comitants of the "factory system" — whether we be thinking of the 
production of cotton cloth, men's hats, school desks, canned meats, and 
magazines, or of wheat, lumber, sea fish, moving pictures, travel, or 
cooking. In each and all of these directions, necessary machine installa- 
tion and operation can readily bring the work of man, woman, or juvenile 
under conditions that, perhaps not at once visibly, may slowly impair 
body or mind, normal interests, or will. 

"Industrial diseases" of many varieties have long been studied by 
hygienists. Strong popular support has often been given to movement? 



372 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

for "a shorter working day" — even by farmers, teachers, and home- 
makers who can not themselves accept shorter hours — because of a grow- 
ing conviction that only under such conditions is permanent bodily and 
mental health to be assured to the routine worker. Movements for the 
curtailment of "child labor" have owed much of their support to popular 
convictions that the still growing body of the juvenile worker can not 
mature normally under conditions imposed by toil in factory, mine, or place 
of merchandising. 

Nervous work, or "brain work," as so largely demanded in civilized 
societies, is unquestionably a prolific source of disorders to health. Tech- 
nically, of course, all work involves both muscles and nerves. But popular 
understanding recognizes far-reaching differences of kinds and degrees 
of strain between day-long woodchopping and bookkeeping, between 
spading ground and teaching school, between laying brick and designing 
buildings. Doubtless primitive man's necessities imposed upon him periods 
requiring utmost concentration of attention, as well as seasons of great 
fear, .worry, or other nervous excitation. But all of these differed very 
fundamentally from the prolonged and regularly recurrent strains imposed 
in civilized societies upon dentists, reporters, bedside nurses, proof-readers, 
saleswomen, silk-weavers, lace-makers, professional musicians, and 
mothers in elaborate apartment houses. 

In all probability, man's physical body is poorly adapted to the strains 
imposed by all these, and many other, forms of "nervous" or "small 
muscle" work. Only by intelligent and careful regimen and conscientious 
devotion to "compensating," "recreative" activities can the damaging con- 
sequences of these strains be offset and the body kept well and strong 
into mature years. 

Decorative women. — that is, women who are encouraged and expected 
to specialize largely in embellishing their immediate social groups and 
in contributing to the esthetic satisfactions of certain of their associates — 
were doubtless evolved in rare cases in very primitive societies. But legend 
and history would seem to give them a sort of institutional status only 
after the appearance of conquering and governing classes. It appears 
that, very generally, conquering men have eschewed manual labor. They 
have speciaHzed in fighting, governing, and in sports. Naturally, they 
have expected their wives and daughters to abstain from coarser forms of 
physical labor, and to preserve their physical attractiveness. Very com- 
monly, also, these conquerors or hereditary aristocrats have been disposed 
and able to preempt or purchase "entertainment" as that could be provided 
by beautiful, and sometimes artistically or intellectually gifted, women. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 373 

Nature has provided that women and men, like numberless other species, 
shall develop, and even compete in, qualities of physical attractiveness as 
a means of sexual selection. In spite of toil and hard conditions, the 
adolescent sons and daughters, even of savage peoples, pass through a 
"blooming" stage when nature and human arts are united to make them 
winsome and luring. Normally, however, this blooming is for a spring- 
time season only. After a few years both men and women settle into the 
routine duties of life, wherein but slight and occasional thought is given 
to the natural or artificial decorations that seemed so important in the 
early years of mating. 

But the wealth, power, and culture standards made possible by con- 
quest introduce quite new conditions for large proportions of the women 
of the powerful, and for such of the aristocratic men as are not forced 
into the hard work of fighting or governing. Queens and princesses, 
according to nearly all legend, have beautiful hands, hair, and skins. 
They have never been the victims of grimy toil. Their toilette is min- 
istered to by hair-dressers and other artists. They come and go amidst 
draperies and perfumes. They are real ladies of leisure. Their functions 
are entertainment, esthetic and intellectual ministry, the diffusion of 
graciousness. 

Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, India, all Europe throughout 
medieval and modern periods — in every one of these, decorative women 
have played their roles alongside of rulers, landowning aristocrats, military 
leaders, and political officials. Competitive enhancement of their esthetic 
graces carried them into endless intricacies of dress, foot-binding, atrophy 
of large muscles, and unnatural prolongation of youthful appearance. For 
such women aging was an evil far more dreaded than disease or quick 
death. 

Under some conditions men also were enabled to specialize in decorative 
ways. Examples are to be found in France of Louis XIV, in England of 
not many decades ago, and elsewhere. But, commonly, political insecurity 
kept the men in action. If hereditary fighters and governors did not keep 
"fit" a new invasion created new leaders. The wives and daughters and 
entertainers of the elect, however, rarely changed their conditions — the 
standards were too well established. They persist into our own day, but 
with consequences that are now far more serious than formerly. 

Modern woman, in the democracies of to-day, is not expected, and does 
not herself, at her best, expect to be a "lady of leisure." She has her 
work to do. But, in a constantly widening range of cases, she is expected 
(and therefore herself desires) to be decorative as well as useful. It is 



. 374 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

a hard combination to make. It breaks the bodies and the spirits of even 
the best. 

Roman, French, or English aristocrats — and in recent centuries that 
included men made aristocratic only by the possession of income-producing 
wealth — would not, of course, allow their daughters to "work." These 
daughters competed in ornamenting their persons and surroundings, and 
in trying to win the most promising of supporters — that is, husbands who 
could assure them position and security. 

In democratic America every man is an aristocrat — and certainly his 
daughter is as good as the daughter of any one else. Mothers and 
daughters think so, too. So they all try to become decorative. At one 
stage of their economic evolution prosperous farmers desire that their 
daughters shall not make themselves "coarse" by manual work. The 
daughter of the city artisan goes to work at sixteen. But it must, if 
possible, be "nice," "light" work. She must try to preserve her decorative 
qualities whilst earning a living. 

Can our modern women carry the double load of work and decorative- 
ness? Perhaps even parasite v;omen can keep their health when they 
have endless time and comfortable surroundings to aid them in recovering 
from their dissipations and the strains of keeping decorative. But can a 
person do a day's work, and also continue to give time, energy, and 
painstaking attention to decorativeness ? That is the problem for millions 
of modern women, a large proportion young, but not a few middle-aged, 
married or celibate. 

The conservation of physical fitness on any extensive and scientific 
scale prevails as yet among only very advanced peoples. High birth rates 
even yet are in most parts of the world accompanied by high infant death 
rates, which probably subtract most heavily, either from children of lesser 
vitality, or from the children of the less vital parents. But civilization 
at its best seeks to conserve all human life, even though it now accepts the 
thought that it is under no obligations to suffer the manifestly unfit freely 
to reproduce their own kind. 

Formerly it was not merely the hazards of infancy that played Nemesis 
to those born with physical handicaps or low potentialities. War, famine, 
vice, disease, and worklessness doubtless removed hosts of the weaker 
before they could become possessed of descendants. The race was then 
certainly to the strong — the race for heirs no less than for power and 
health. Now sanitation, clinics, charity, scientific warfare, and specialized 
industry create endless niches in which the physically frail can exist. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 375 



perhaps thrive and multiply. The load thus imposed upon health-con- 
serving agencies becomes steadily greater. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Andress, J. M. Health Education in Rural Schools (Ch. i, Why Health 

Should Be the First Aim of the School; Ch. 2, Play and Physical 

Education). 
Binder, R. M. Health and Social Progress (Ch. 5, Health and Civiliza- 
tion; Ch. 10-12, Health and World Progress). 
BoBBiTT^ F. The Curriculum (Part IV, Education for Physical 

Efficiency) . 
Crile, G. W. Man^ an Adaptive Mechanism (Part III, Biologic Inter- 
pretations of Phenomena of Health and Disease). 
GuYER, M. F. Being Well Born (Indianapolis, 1916) (Ch. 10, Race 

Betterment Through Heredity). 
Hill, H. W. The New Public Health (Ch. 2, The Old Principles and 

the New). 
Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race (Ch. 4, Heritable Basis of Crime 

and Delinquency). 
Lee, F. S. The Human Machine (Ch. 8-10, Maintenance of Working 

Powers). 
Maclaren, a. Physical Education (Oxford, 1895). 
March, N. H. Towards Racial Health (N. Y., 1919) (Ch. 1-5, Physical 

Development and the Child). 
Marshall, J. S. Mouth Hygiene (Phila., 1916) (Ch. 2, Prevalence of 

Oral Diseases). 
McCarthy, J. D. Health and Efficiency. 
Thomas, W. J. Sex and Society (Ch. i, Organic Differences of the 

Sexes). 
Tyler, J. M. Growth and Education (Ch. i. Present Needs; Ch. 2, Man 

in Light of Evolution). 
Warbasse, J. p. Medical Sociology (Ch. 4, Some Medical Aspects of 

Civilization). 
Welpton, W. p. Principles and Methods of Physical Education and 

Hygiene (London, 1908) (Ch. 2, Physical Education in Relation 

to Mind and Body). 
Wood, T. D. Health and Education (Ninth Year Book of National 

Society for the Study of Education). 



CHAPTER XXIX 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: SOCIOLOGICAL 
FOUNDATIONS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

ALL adults, except a few rare social parasites, follow vocations. Only 
those of our activities that are directed toward earning a livelihood 
or doing our share of the world's work are properly vocational. Outside 
of the time given to pursuit of vocations, we play, rest, sleep, and divert 
and recreate ourselves. We give time to politics, worship, care of our 
families, and otherwise, outside of the seasons claimed by our work. 

What is a vocation? The dictionaries, as well as popular usage, admit 
of several different definitions to the word "vocation." But the most 
nearly universal meaning is that which restricts its meaning to "that 
occupation by which one earns his livelihood." A man may have several 
occupations — in politics, recreation, care of family, participating in enter- 
tainments, and the like — besides his vocation. Children, aged persons, 
and defectives do not, as a rule, have vocations. Not all vocations are in 
the wage-earning class. Farmers and home-makers have their vocations 
no less than clerks and teachers, even though they do not receive regular 
wages. 

In fact, all normal adults have vocations — and this applies to more than 
sixty million persons in the United States. 

What part of these sixty million adults had vocational education? In 
the broadest sense of the word, all have had it. Nature does not give 
men specific vocational instincts, as it does bees, ants, and beavers. All 
the adult workers of America to-day, as well as nearly all the adults of 
past history, had to learn their vocations — that is, they had to learn from 
others, and by experience, how to hunt, fish, till the soil, build, mine, and 
manufacture. In the true sociological sense, therefore, all adults have 
had, somewhere and somehow, a vocational education — a good, a bad, or 
an indifferent vocational education. 

Fundamentally, American workers have had three different kinds of 
vocational education : in schools ; through apprenticeship ; and by "pick-up" 
methods. 

Probably from 5 to 6 per cent, of the sixty million adult workers now 
in the United States were trained to greater or less degrees of proficiency 
for their respective callings in vocational schools, each staffed, equipped, 
and adjusted to its particular work. Most physicians, dentists, pharma- 
cists, and regular officers in army and navy are the products, in the first 
instance, of vocational schools of the professional class. Most stenog- 

376 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 377 

raphers, some elementary-school teachers, a few bookkeepers, many 
engineers, and some agricultural experts were started on their careers by 
specialized schools, designed in each case to prepare for one vocation, or at 
most a few related ones. But almost none of the carpenters, salesmen, 
farmers, miners, or home-makers now found in the United States were 
vocationally trained in schools. 

The second source of vocational education is organized and standard- 
ized apprenticeship. Somewhere between 5 and 7 per cent, of our 
workers can thank apprenticeship education for their start in life. These 
include nearly all printers, plumbers, pattern-makers, silversmiths, and 
locomotive engineers ; considerable proportions of carpenters, electricians, 
and stone-masons ; and a diminishing number of machinists, bricklayers, 
and house-painters. 

True apprenticeship education has never flourished in America in 
manufacturing, mining, and transportation. It lives in the handicraft 
trades, of which the building trades are the principal group. Increasing 
use of machinery, specialization of productive processes, and the mobility 
of free American labor are not conducive to good apprenticeship. Appren-. 
ticeship between parents and children has never given adequate vocational 
training for any but the crudest and simplest of vocations. 

The third great method of vocational education, and one very much in 
vogue in America, is the "pick-up" method. The learner is put to work 
at the least difficult portions of the job — washing dishes, hoeing corn, 
selling books, operating a lathe, digging coal, or driving an automobile. 
His instincts of imitation are called upon. At irregular intervals he is 
shown some new tricks. If he "picks up" fairly well he is approved and' 
kept. If not he is "fired." 

Nearly 90 per cent, of all American adult workers are the products 
of "pick-up" vocational education. This includes practically all our 
farmers, home-makers, store clerks, sailors, factory hands, miners, and 
actors. It includes large proportions of our teachers, carpenters, and 
business men. Pick-up methods are the methods of laissez-faire, of 
easy-going democracy, of the frontier. In some cases these workers are 
truly "self-made" — that is, having found access to some field of work, 
they have struggled by "trail-and-error" methods forward to some sort 
of tolerable competency. In other cases fathers or mothers have clumsily 
steered them along. They have also imitated fellow workers, and often 
they have struggled forward by "trial-and-error" methods of some sort, 
their vocation has at best been hazardous, ill planned, and often in pursuit 
of wrong leads. "Pick-up" methods of vocational education promote mal- 
adjustments of kinds and degrees hardly possible to vocational schools or 
apprenticeship, both of which must early reject the unfit candidate. 

Your personal experience with the vocational education of yourself 
and with that of some of your associates constitutes a good starting point 
for analysis of many of its problems : 

I. What kinds of adults, if any, can you indicate who do not follow definite 
vocations? Do you restrict the word "vocation" largely to work in earning a 



Z?'^ EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



livelihood? Can vocations be criminal or parasitic, as well as honorable? 
Why do we say that children do not follow vocations? 

How many distinctive vocations would you estimate could be found in an 
American city of one hundred thousand people? What varieties of the o-en- 
eral vocation of salesmanship can you distinguish ? What varieties of the vo- 
cation of farming? Does the vocation of home-making differentiate into 
several kinds? According to what conditions? 

2. Take ten distinctive vocations, practitioners in which are known to you, 
and trace in each case the methods by which proficiency has been achieved. 
As far as you know, which of the following kinds of workers are largely 
trained in vocational schools : dentists, pharmacists, high-school teachers, house 
carpenters, hardware salesmen, range stock raisers, sailors, lumbermen, dress- 
makers, waitresses ? What is meant by apprenticeship ? What have been his- 
torically the usual condition-s attaching to apprenticeship? Do you associate 
it primarily with large factories or small shops ^ Do boys and girls fre- 
quently become apprentices to their own parents ? How many apprentices 
can one master workman usually educate? Of these vocations, which are 
usually prepared for through apprenticeship : house plumbing, stenography, law, 
elementary-school teaching, locomotive engineering, textile work in factories, 
gardening, coal mining? What are some of the conditions in America usu- 
ally attaching to organized apprenticeship, length of apprenticeship, condi- 
tions of entry, compensation of apprentice, and guaranty of vocational edu- 
cation ? 

3. For persons not vocationally educated by apprenticeship or vocational 
school, what are the remaining methods ? Are these anywhere organized ? By 
what methods have the bulk of factory workers, clerks, small farmers, miners, 
seamen, and purveyors of entertainment reached their present attainment of 
proficiency throughout the United States ? What is meant by unskilled labor ? 
Is it ever completely unskilled, or is success in it at least dependent upon 
possession of bodily powers of strength, endurance, resistance, and possibly 
of special skills ? 

4. Why do many of the highest paid vocations — especially professions — now 
have regularly organized vocational schools, often supported by philanthropy 
or at public expense ? Why, in your estimation, do so few of the poorly paid 
vocations have vocational schools ? 

What are now some of the uncertainties and defects of the apprenticeship 
method of vocational education? If you distinguish between acquisition of 
practical skills on the one hand, and of the technical knowledge appropriate 
for the vocation on the other, which, in your estimation, does apprenticeship 
give to best advantage ? How might apprenticeship education be supplemented 
by other means in order to impart technical knowledge and intellectual flexi- 
bility? 

What are the defects of "pick-up" vocational education? Does it help or 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 379 

hinder choice of a "right" vocation? What evidence is there that it is a 
wasteful method? Would you interpret the contemporary "movement for vo- 
cational education" as primarily an attempt to substitute for hit-or-miss, 
"pick-up" vocational education some systematic vocational training in schools 
adapted to specific vocations? Why is not that idea readily received and 
approved ? 

5. How can society at the present time measure the social need for school 
vocational education in any particular field? How has this need been dis- 
covered in the past in such fields of work as elementary-school teaching, 
nursing, higher forms of agriculture, stenography, commercial art? By what 
means would you seek to prove to-day that there exists a social need for 
vocational education through special schools in : some of the salesmanship 
vocations; practical farming of several varieties; hotel cooking; textile fac- 
tory foremanship; stationary engine management; high-school teaching; print- 
ing trades? 

Should the social need for school vocational education at public expense be 
determined primarily by the needs of : industry at large ; employers of labor ; 
the needs of growing boys and girls; or the needs of the state or collective 
society? To what extent is vocational education of particular varieties justi- 
fied by the possible need of special service in war-time ? Is the social need of 
vocational education through schools greater in the unspecialized than in the 
highly specialized vocations? Is there more justification for the public sup- 
port of vocational education in bookkeeping, pharmacy, electric wiring, or 
dressmaking than in the mining of coal, steel making, and meat packing? 
Should the state have a different attitude toward public support of vocational 
education for the fields of employment that are now absorbed by large cor- 
porations, as contrasted with those in which individual initiative still plays a 
considerable part? Why? 

6. Specify certain vocations in which the degree of compensation of the 
worker is determined almost wholly by the possession of certain definite 
skills. Specify certain others wherein technical knowledge plays a very 
large part. Endeavor to separate, in the total proficiency found in each 
of the following vocations, elements of skill from elements of technical 
knowledge : general farming as practised in the Middle West ; house car- 
pentry ; insurance salesmanship ; salesmanship of children's wear ; bookkeep- 
ing; kindergarten-school teaching. 

What are the means by which vocational schools now train workers in 
skills — both those involving precision and accuracy, and the others involving 
speed? Separately consider dentistry, stenography, dressmaking, civil engi- 
neering, army leadership (West Point), elementary-school teaching. 

By what means would you provide "school vocational training" to give skill 
to workers in such vocations as seamanship, machine-shop practice, motor- 
truck driving, weaving, machine woodworking, home-making? 



38o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

7. What are some vocations in which it seems practicable to impart tech- 
nical knowledge alone, leaving skills to be acquired later in employment? 
Illustrate for agriculture, electrical work, mining engineering, salesmanship, 
and various fields of applied art. 

Is it your opinion that present tendencies in the evolution of vocational 
education are in the direction of requiring that vocational schools shall 
train in skills, as well as instruct in technical knowledge ? Are there reasons 
inherent in modern industrial , organization which render the teaching of 
skills through any form of foreman oversight difficult, if not impracticable? 

8. Name some vocations that, in your experience, can be well followed 
only by persons of : high intelligence ; extremely good physical development ; 
some very special talent. Name some other vocations that can be followed 
by men of average ability, but only after prolonged training. 

9. For which of these vocations do men or women seem to possess the 
largest easily available instinctive equipment : hunting, or composition in 
printing; the care of infants, or the teaching of a primary school; the care 
of domestic animals, or the driving of locomotives; exploration, or the writing 
of books of fiction? Do you know of any vocations for which it seems that 
men have at maturity as complete an instinctive equipment as bees, ants, 
hawks, or beavers have for their means of obtaining a livelihood? 

ID. Name and briefly describe ten kinds of specific vocational schools 
now found in the United States, nearly all of the graduates of which expect 
to follow and actually do, in most instances, follow the vocations for which 
they are trained. What proportions of these schools train for those higher 
vocations called professions? Which for the commercial vocations? Which 
for the industrial or trade vocations ? 

11. Give illustrations of situations in which man's productivity depends 
largely on the presence of natural resources ; other examples wherein pro- 
ductivity depends greatly on accumulated knowledge of arts, and on inven- 
tions; other instances of heavy dependence upon capital, stored wealth, ex- 
pensive tools, and credit; other instances of heavy dependence on prolonged 
security from war, fire, theft; other instances of dependence on high degrees 
of subdivision of labor, including expert leadership and minute skills; still 
other instances of dependeruce upon the general health, strength, intelligence, 
and friendly nature of the individual worker. 

12. Granted the conditions called for in the preceding section, give in- 
stances in which high productivity or low productivity are dependent upon 
specific vocational training of the worker. 

13. What are the characteristic methods of productive labor of primitive 
men as recorded in history, or as found now in the outlying parts of the 
world? Are you aware of marked distinctions among primitive peoples in 
the character of work of men and of women? If we consider warfare and 
hunting as vocations also, what are the earliest known forms of their 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 381 

psychological accompaniments ? Do some of these psychological qualities 
seem still to persist, and apparently give basic differentiations to the favorite 
occupations of men and of women? 

VARIETIES OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ^ 

In the modern city w& can readily distinguish several hundred vocations 
— in fact, SO far have we proceeded in specialization that it is possible to 
enumerate more than two thousand distinct callings in the state of New 
York. The United States "Occupation Census" for 1910 contained more 
than one hundred and fifty captions, or occupational headings. But many 
of these — e.g., farmers, clerks, teachers, fishermen, "workers in lumber 
industries," iron and steel mill workers, shoe-factory workers and traveling 
salesmen — were not subdivided, notwithstanding that in actual practice 
each of these groups embraces many workers of very distinctive vocations. 
In our daily contacts we readily differentiate stenographers, kindergarten 
teachers, street-car motormen, vegetable gardeners, railway conductors, 
waitresses, bank cashiers, carpenters, dentists, sea captains, compositors 
(printing), butchers, candy-makers, coal-miners, pharmacists, and many 
others. We naturally assume that each of these is trained primarily to 
do his own kind of work and no other. We observe that in proportion 
as each becomes a competent specialist his services are increasingly in 
demand and at higher rates of compensation. 

Each adult follows a vocation. Some of these may, of course, be 
antisocial — as are the vocations of burglar, pirate, gambler, quack, and 
vagrant. For some no wage may be paid — as in the case of the wife and 
mother working in the home, the volunteer social worker, the farm boy 
helping his father. Some vocations may be secondary — as in the case of 
the farmer who puts in a few months lumbering, or the clerk who plays 
evenings in an orchestra. The term "vocation," however, does not apply 
properly to a "side" calling pursued primarily for pleasure rather than 
profit — whether that be poultry raising by the professional booj^keeper, 
poetry writing by the physician, or coin collecting by the broker. These 
hobbies are truly avocations — a word often confused with vocation 
by superficial thinkers. 

Vocational education of a kind has been received by every adult worker 
— provided we give a sufficiently broad and entirely justifiable definition 
to the word education. Animals seem to be born with a sufficient equip- 

* See Snedden, Vocational Education (Ch. i, The Meaning of Vocational Edu- 
cation). 



382 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

merit of instincts to enable each by himself, and quite apart from example, 
to learn how to get a living — by cracking nuts, capturing game, collect- 
ing honey, sucking fruit. Children nurse and gather edible scraps from 
the ground instinctively; but they must learn from example and by di- 
rection how^ to use tools, track animals, till the soil, make iron by smelting, 
sew with a needle, drive a car, or cook food. The vocational ideals, 
skills, and technical knowledge now used by mankind are a part of our 
social inheritance, accumulated through thousands of years, and trans- 
mitted through ordinary imitation or its special forms organized as direct 
instruction and training. 

THE ECONOMIC BASES OE VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

In order to live themselves and to support those dependent upon them, 
all men must produce goods and services, which they either consume 
directly or exchange for the goods and services produced by others. All 
normal adults thus somehow work for a living — always, of course, seek- 
ing the most productive, and the least pain-giving, forms of work they 
can find. Some men find it possible to work by robbing or begging from 
others. Those persons who have accumulated some possessions that can 
be rented or hired to others — land, tools, houses, loanable capital — may 
elect to do no other work than to attend to the hiring out of these income- 
yielding possessions. In highly organized societies, some persons find it 
profitable to do their work as writers, entertainers, captains, law-givers, 
priests, or artists. They are compensated, nominally in money, but ac- 
tually in goods produced by other workers in return for their own services. 

The primary economic basis of the productivity of all work is, ob- 
viously, Mother Earth. The basic utilities of food, shelter, clothing, and 
diversion come from the soil, the water, and the rocks, directly or through 
plants or animals. 

The condition of next importance is accumulated mastery of the knowl- 
edge and tools necessary to capture and domesticate animals, till the 
soil, extract metals, erect shelters, and otherwise subdue the earth and 
its forces to man's ends. 

The third condition is found in the social order, which has collectively 
been produced to assure to man the fruits of his own labor and to make 
possible the endless transport and exchange of goods that complex so- 
cieties require. 

For most forms of modern production, as the after-consequences of 
capital-consuming wars disastrously reveal, there are required those pe- 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 383 

culiar aggregations of wealth which constitute capital and the founda- 
tions of credit. 

Subject to the foregoing conditions, the productivity of individual 
workers is dependent upon their individual native abilities, health, and 
specific working powers. These last rest on foundations of instinct or 
original nature, but, as found in all but the most primitive of men, they 
take definite shape from education — that is, from various forms of educa- 
tion as insured by home, participation in work, and the like. 

Vocational education has, then, been obtained by all men and women 
at all times. . Often it has been bad, rather than good, vocational train- 
ing, and frequently it has been insufficient and poorly adjusted; never- 
theless all have received it, otherwise they could not have lived. There 
were roughly some 60,000,000 adult workers in the United States in 
1910 — perhaps 20,000,000 home-makers, 1,500,000 domestic servants, 12,- 
000,000 farmers and farm laborers, more than 5,000,000 workers in 
trade and commerce, nearly 2,000,000 in the professions, and some 20,- 
000,000 in mining, manufacturing, transport, and the rest. All these 
had somewhere and somehow been trained for their work — sometimes 
by parents, often by foremen, in some cases by vocational schools, and 
not infrequently by apprenticeship. 

The shortages and defects of much of this vocational education now 
seriously concern the social economist and all others who think in terms 
of social efficiency. 

Vocational education will be here exclusively defined as embracing all 
forms of control, suggestion, instruction, and training designed to pro- 
duce competency in some form of productive work. Vocational edu- 
cation should thus be differentiated sharply from those numerous other 
forms of education designed to increase physical well-being, to improve 
moral and civic behavior, and to extend the cultural acquisitions of men. 
Occasionally some forms of this general or liberal education minister 
also to vocational competency, but that is the exception rather than the 
rule. It might be claimed that abilities to read and write have voca- 
tional as well as civic and cultural values. The latter are, however, so 
much the more important that they should be regarded as the controlling 
justifications of education toward literacy. 

Vocational education takes its rise partly in the instincts of children 
to imitate the ways of their elders, and partly in the instinctive as well 
as custom-directed tendencies of elders to induce and to compel their chil- 
dren or their younger associates to help in work and finally to work inde- 
pendently. It has, therefore, been part of the family discipline of all peoples 



384 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

at all times to train children for productive work. This responsibility is 
delegated to apprenticeship and to schools and to commercial agencies only 
when the task becomes too complex for the home. The conditions under 
which the family as a whole, including its children, constitutes a pro- 
ductive as well as a utilization unit can be seen yet on any small farm, in 
many crowded homes, and even occasionally in small mercantile and repair 
shops, especially as conducted by recent immigrants. 

Man doubtless possesses a wider range of instincts and impulses suited 
to laying the foundations of vocational competency than any other ani- 
mal species. These are, however, seldom definite or specific, and are 
dependent upon development and training after birth for their proper 
functioning. The beginnings of all vocational education, as stated above, 
are found in the instinctive tendencies of children to imitate the activities 
of their elders. In a favorable environment of suggestion and example 
(such as is now rarely found surrounding growing boys and girls), the 
natural operation of these instincts of imitation may carry one far voca- 
tionally. One can believe that boys in primitive societies often became 
fairly expert hunters, fishermen, nut gatherers, and even warriors, in 
just this way. 

Very early, however, primitive human beings learned the importance 
of bringing to bear a certain amount of compulsion and direction in 
the vocational training of the young. ^ Tasks were set and systematic 
effort for their accomplishment encouraged or required. Where the 
household unit or the family needs were not sufficient to insure either the 
right kinds or the right degrees of vocational training, there long ago 
grew up the system of apprenticeship whereby the youth was. more or 
less formally indentured to an adult skilled worker, who, in return for 
the services of an assistant, agreed to train the novice. Wherever in 
the ancient world we find well developed trades we find some form of 
apprenticeship. For many centuries even such professions as the priest- 
hood, medicine, war leadership, and teaching were recruited through 
apprenticeship. ' In the 'Middle Ages, with their enormous development 
of handicraft trades and of individualized mercantile callings, apprentice- 
ship developed to an elaborate degree, and was buttressed by extensive 
bodies of legislation, customs, and conventions. The medieval crafts, 
mercantile and professional guilds in Europe carried the development of 
vocational education through apprenticeship to a degree of perfection that 
is even yet but imperfectly understood. 

Vocational schools in nearly all cases seem to have had their origins in 

^W. J. Thomas, Sex and Society (Ch. 4, Sex and Primitive Industry). 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 385 

private or public attempts to supplement vocational training through ap- 
prenticeship by some forms of technical instruction. Apprenticeship 
in handicraft trades is an exceedingly effective means of teaching the 
practical skills and other functions of a vocation that have to be learned 
through imitation and prolonged repetition under personal guidance. 
In many cases it is a poor means of imparting the technical knowledge 
upon which, especially in recent years, when science and systematic art 
have made such enormous advances, many, especially of the higher voca- 
tions, have become very dependent. Hence long ago there appeared 
medical schools, which, taking the apprentices to physicians in groups, 
gave them, by means of lectures, followed by gradually increasing labor- 
atory practice, the more recently developed technical knowledge which 
the older practitioners were unable to impart. Colleges of war leader- 
ship and agriculture were designed originally largely for those who al- 
ready possessed substantial amounts of practical experience in these 
callings, but wished to extend and supplement this by the more complex 
and up-to-date applications of science which were being made in these 
fields. Nearly a century ago there were developed in many large cities 
in America what were known as Mechanics Institutes. These were co- 
operative undertakings designed primarily to give apprentices and the 
more ambitious journeymen and masters in the various trades access to 
organized bodies of all technical knowledge through libraries, and also 
instruction in mathematics, physics, chemistry, drawing, and other ap- 
plied sciences and arts, which the available forms of apprenticeship were 
utterly inadequate to supply. 

Earlier "business colleges" and commercial schools only rarely thought 
of their functions in terms of training in the practical skills directly re- 
quired in the business vocations. Their functions, it was assumed, were 
primarily to teach the principles of business and to give such specific 
training in penmanship, the writing of business letters, and bookkeeping 
as to enable the future clerk or business man to carry over useful applica- 
tions from these to his own practice. Engineering colleges to a large 
extent even yet conceive their functions chiefly as giving their highly se- 
lected students mastery of the more technical or theoretical phases of 
these vocations, leaving the student to obtain practical skills and experience 
after leaving his institution. Medicine tends steadily to supplement tech- 
nical training by clinical and other hospital practices. The earlier nor- 
mal schools in the history of the United States included no practical 
training in their curricula. They sought to give on the one hand the 
general culture believed to be necessary for a teacher, and on the other 



386 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

systematic instruction in the art and science of teaching, leaving a novice 
to acquire practical experience after entering upon actual work. It may 
truthfully be said that the large majority of secondary-school teachers 
now coming from our colleges and universities have also been profession- 
ally prepared only to the extent of having acquired a fair general edu- 
cation and some more or less bookish theory of the so-called art and 
science of teaching. 

Occasionally stress of circumstances, rather perhaps than clearly de- 
fined intentions, have forced certain types of vocational schools to define 
their functions more comprehensively. When Florence Nightingale in- 
itiated the systematic training of nurses, the exigencies of conducting 
hospitals required that these schools should take the form of a magnified 
and highly organized apprenticeship, wherein the novices from the very 
outset would be required to participate in the "productive" work of caring 
for patients and assisting physicians. Schools of nursing have there- 
fore long conceived their functions in terms of the complete training of 
the nurse. Some factories, department stores, and telephone companies 
have been forced to establish special schools for their younger and less 
trained employees. Superficially considered, the schools are themselves 
apart from the productive work for which these beginners are being paid. 
Fundamentally, however, their instruction and the early participation of 
learners in productive work should simply be regarded as complementary 
parts of a total scheme of vocational training. 

The general decay of apprenticeship in America and western Europe 
as a means of vocational education has been primarily due to two causes.^ 
The less important is the constantly increasing mobility of labor that 
followed upon the "Black Death," and particularly on the discovery of 
America, and in America itself from the multiplying opportunities open- 
ingf to the westward. For several centuries, now, masters and other 
employers have found it increasingly difficult to hold their workers to 
indentures or contracts. Throughout the Middle Ages, it will be re- 
membered, many types of workers were practially denied freedom of mi- 
gration without the consent of governing authorities. 

In America, from the first days of colonial settlement, the West has 
always beckoned the more restive and dissatisfied workers from the east- 
ern shores and even from Europe. As a consequence, even in colonial 
days apprenticeship never was a well developed or consistent means for 
the vocational education of any substantial number of workers. 

^ See O. J. Dunlop, English Apprenticeship (London, 1912), (Ch. 6 and 14). 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 387 

A second and far more important cause, however, has been the sub- 
stitution of power-driven machinery for handicraft tools. The intro- 
duction of power has necessitated large-scale organizations of nearly 
all forms of production that could be concentrated at central points. 
Only the building trades have during the last hundred years been able 
to preserve their dispersed character, and it is in these that some forms of 
apprenticeship persist strongly to this day. Power production has de- 
veloped very few well marked systems of apprenticeship. Perhaps the 
best known is due to the incidental circumstance that a locomotive has 
seemed always to require both a driver and a stoker. The latter not 
only aspires eventually to be an engineer, but he holds such a position 
in relation to the engine and to the locomotive driver that in the course of 
a few years he acquires at first hand almost all the knowledge and skill 
essential to the engineer's position. In this field of work, therefore, 
we have the conditions under which apprenticeship has always flourished. 
First, the work must be of such a character that the master worker is 
individualized or given a task more or less by himself, and in which he 
needs only one helper. Historic apprenticeship has always been at its 
best in the paired relationship of master and assistant. Under these con- 
ditions a maximum of friendly cooperation is likely to develop, and the 
various intimacies of joint work give thoroughness and the sense of 
responsibility to the learning acquired by the apprentice. 

Power production renders inexpedient the individualization of the 
work of masters, except in rare instances.* It necessarily entails a large 
amount of regimentation. For economy's sake, dozens and sometimes 
hundreds of workers, all with substantially equal powers, must be- grouped 
together, usually under a foreman. The distribution of power, rout- 
ing of materials upon which work must be done, and supervision, necessi- 
tate company or gang foremen even of the novices in productive proc- 
esses. Under these conditions, anything like the old effectiveness of the 
"paired" apprenticeship relation is found to disappear, and in fact 
it has disappeared to a large extent in all modern industrial areas. 
The name "apprentice" is preserved, but it is applied to helpers or minor 
operatives who are assumed to be in process of advancement. Rarely, 
however, does the term now cover any factory processes in systematic 
training of novices toward higher forms of skill and technical knowledge. 
Apprenticeship still survives in some shop industries, largely owing to 
the conserving influences of trade-union organization. It is hardly found 

* See A. Pound, The Iron Man (Ch. 7). 



388 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

at all in the commercial world, and only in atrophied forms in mining, 
navigation, food packing, and the more highly subdivided processes of 
machine production. 

The relation of vocational to general education will continue for some 
time yet to furnish many trying problems to educators, largely owing, 
of course, to unenlightened public opinion and to hardly less unenlight- 
ened academic opinion regarding the real significance and character of 
vocations and of training for vocations.^ Many persons believe yet that 
in some mystic way general education contributes to vocational profi- 
ciency. It may do so, of course, in a very few vocations and under some 
uncommon conditions. The only road to clear thinking here is through 
"job analysis" of particular vocations, confronted by equally specific 
analysis of the objectives of the studies constituting liberal education. One 
can, for example, analyze the various components of the proficiency 
characteristic of high-grade barbers or carpenters or poultry farmers. 
Against the factors thus discovered he can place the results expected 
to accrue from the study in schools of general education of music, Ameri- 
can history, and civics. 

Carefully conducted analyses of the kind here suggested will easily 
convince the more skeptical that there can be no inherent connection in 
general between efficient training for a specific vocation and efficient edu- 
cation for the cultural, civic, and health necessities of modern life. Such 
processes of analysis will speedily develop the exceptions to the general 
principle enunciated. For example, certain easily recognized proficiencies 
in handwriting' become obvious assets in the bookkeeper's vocation; 
certain parts of trigonometry and other high-school mathematics func- 
tion later in engineers' vocations ; training in spelling beyond ordinary 
standards may well become an asset to the stenographer; and some bi- 
ology can be made to function in the study of medicine. Taking the 
rank and file of vocations, however, and the ordinary cultural studies, 
the general principle stated above seems to hold true. The ultimate 
values of so-called liberal or humanistic studies must, therefore, be 
determined by reference, not to vocational success, but to the objec- 
tives of health, approved social behavior, and general personal culture, 
for the promotion of which they are designed. Equally, the validity 
of objectives and the effectiveness of methods in so-called vocational 
schools must be determined with reference to standards of productive 
efficiency in particular vocations, either immediate or remote, which 
are finally realized. 

*For an opposed point of view consult C. H. Henderson, Pay Day. 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 389 

Vocations for mature workers are, under modern economic condi- 
tions, rarely the same as those for immature workers. The social 
ideal has always been an early entrance upon, and prolonged steady ad- 
vancement upward, in the vocation which one follows for life. Holders 
of this ideal some years ago dubbed the great majority of juvenile voca- 
tions, especially as these are found in cities, as "blind-alley" or "dead- 
end" vocations. In one sense the characterization is true, but in an- 
other it is most unfair. It is the inevitable tendency of specialized pro- 
duction to departmentalize workers, both vertically and horizontally. 
It follows that the great majority of vocations that are suited to young 
workers are not, or should not, be suited to adult workers. It there- 
fore follows that very frequently the years spent in a juvenile vocation 
give results in training and technical knowledge which may not be at all 
functional in the vocations later to be followed. 

By far the most conspicuous of all the transitions found in the modern 
economic world is that made by young women workers from the mul- 
titudinous wage-earning vocations that they follow prior to marriage to 
the home-making vocation normally entailed on them by matrimony. 
Frequently the juvenile vocations followed by these persons give no 
assets toward home-making. It is a widespread theory of social workers 
that the teacher and the trained nurse bring to the care of the family 
invaluable assets. It is also generally held that young women who 
have been employed in business callings carry forward a variety of 
appreciations and knowledge that can function importantly in the voca- 
tion of home-making. Whether the same thing happens to any consid- 
erable extent in the case of girls who have been employed in the number- 
less factory processes of our large cities may well be questioned. 

A large majority of boys, electing or compelled to become self-support- 
ing at from fourteen to seventeen years of age, are obliged to take up voca- 
tions as helpers in commercial or industrial establishments. Sometimes 
the experience there obtained is definitely functional in the more re- 
munerative adult vocations to which they are later advanced. In many 
cases, however, there may be no such interdependence. Even a super- 
ficial analysis of many of the vocations found in any large city — like those 
of policeman, fireman, stationary engineer, chauffeur, and hundreds of 
others — will show that only after having obtained considerable maturity 
are men considered fitted for admission to them. All of the workers 
in these fields have usually filled other vocations during their juvenile 
years of wage-earning work. 

These considerations lead to certain very important conclusions re- 



390 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

garding the desirable and practicable place and scope of publicly sup- 
ported vocational education in the future. That a society bent upon 
lessening human waste should provide specific vocational training at 
the outset for juvenile workers would seem to be a foregone conclusion. 
It is not, however, so generally realized that probably in the great ma- 
jority of cases such training could be very effectively accomplished within 
the space of from four to sixteen weeks on an eight-hour-a-day basis, that 
is, of from two hundred to eight hundred hours of concentrated train- 
ing. 

"Upgrading" schools are no less important — that is schools for advanc- 
ing workers from the status of juvenile employees to that of adult em- 
ployees as maturity is reached. Even in the middle years of life op- 
portunities for upgrading vocational education should be provided. For 
example, the great majority of foremanships, as well as many other re- 
sponsible positions, can be entered upon only when the workers have 
attained to an age of from twenty-five to thirty years of age. Men 
to be advanced to these positions are, naturally, selected from among 
many workers on acount of personal fitness. It is the growing convic- 
tion of employers and students of vocational education, however, that 
substantial amounts of quite specific vocational training for their new 
callings could very profitably be given to these candidates for advance- 
ment. 

Evening schools and correspondence schools are now the chief re- 
sources of persons thus seeking to advance themselves. Both of these 
types of vocational training are of very doubtful efficiency when con- 
trasted with the possibilities of concentrated specialized training, reinforced 
by supervised participation in productive work on an eight-hour-a-day 
basis, and taking all of the learner's time for from anywhere from four 
to fifty weeks, according to the complexity and importance of the new 
vocation. 

Democratization of educational opportunities demands the extensive 
development under public support and control of vocational schools. 
At the present time, that youth who combines prosperous parentage with 
good native ability finds open to him, upon completing his general high- 
school program, a great variety of publicly endowed and private voca- 
tional schools — such as those of theology, law, war leadership, medicine, 
dentistry, pharmacy, agricultural leadership, engineering, and teaching. 
On the other hand, the youth from an unprosperous home, and handi- 
capped by inferior mental ability, finds open to him on completing the 
elementary school, or even after two years of high-school work, virtually 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 391 

no opportunities whatever to procure effective vocational training for 
the calHngs among which he must make a choice. The result is, as 
stated earlier, that more than 90 per cent, of all the adult workers of 
America have attained to such vocational proficiency as they now possess 
through the wasteful and hazardous methods of "pick-up" vocational 
education, and with virtually no aid whatever from vocational schools 
or apprenticeship — truly a far-reaching denial of democratic "equality 
of opportunity." 

Elementary and secondary schools throughout America now conform 
largely to democratic ideals in that they are available to all of requisite 
ability, and are free of cost to rich and poor alike. Lest inexperience 
or selfishness should operate to deprive a child of his educational rights, 
school attendance to a reasonable age and degree of scholastic attain- 
ment is made obligatory. 

It is only when we come to the field of vocational education that we 
find, as yet, almost a complete failure even in the formulation of demo- 
cratic ideals. As respects education for vocational efficiency, America 
still enforces on its children that most undemocratic of all ancient max- 
ims : "To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not 
shall be taken away even that which he hath." 

What we recognize as the contemporary "movement for vocational 
education" needs, obviously, to be given clearer definition than has com- 
monly been done — and in terms of the distinctions noted above. It 
is not a. movement for more vocational education in those fields where 
fairly good and numerous schools now exist — law, theology, stenography, 
medicine, and the other relatively aristocratic vocations. It is a move- 
ment to provide vocational schools for the vocations heretofore neglected 
in our, at present, undemocratic system. It represents a social move- 
ment to substitute purposiveness for chance, system for hit-or-miss in one 
very important department of "education for life." 

This movement aims to help "industry" (including farming and other 
fields of work) by producing better workers. It aims to help the state 
by giving it better producers. But, above all else, it aims to help the 
youth of the land to find their work and to prepare for it without all 
the hazards and ineffectiveness of "pick-up" methods. 

The multiplication of vocational schools will unquestionably soon 
follow upon general appreciation, first of the wastefulness of "pick-up" 
methods of vocational education, and second of the cruelly undemocratic 
attitude of society in this respect. There is no reason why America 
should not possess many hundred, if not indeed several thousand, va- 



392 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

rieties of vocational schools. It is very easy to-day to list more than 
two thousand distinctive vocations now recognized by census enumerators 
in the United States. When such highly composite categories as "clerks 
in stores," "teachers," "salesmen," "farmers," "machine-shop operatives," 
"coal-miners," shall have been properly analyzed into the actual constituent 
vocations, it may be that the number of easily recognizable distinctive 
functions pursued by the sixty million adult workers in America will 
amount to more than five thousand. 

It would be obviously ridiculous to assume a wide distribution of 
each type of vocational school. At present there are in America about 
one hundred medical colleges ; there are fewer than that many agri- 
cultural colleges; and there is only one West Point and one Annapolis. 
This method of distributing vocational schools must more or less pre- 
vail with respect to all vocations. It would be childish, except in such 
widely distributed vocations as home-making, and perhaps, in some 
areas, specific types of farming, to expect to bring vocational schools 
near to the homes of widely distributed candidates for training. 

On the other hand, it must be recognized that many of our indus- 
tries tend to concentrate in a few centers, and in these several types of 
specialized vocational schools could economically and efficiently be con- 
ducted. Half a dozen kinds of technical schools of paper making could 
well center in Holyoke, Massachusetts. There are said to be more than 
a hundred distinctive vocational processes employed in the making of 
shoes. If it should eventually seem important to provide specific train- 
ing agencies for each of these, an aggregation of these schools could 
very properly be established in Brockton or Lynn, Massachusetts. We 
may yet see more than a hundred distinctive schools in the various proc- 
esses of automobile manufacture located in Detroit; and a score of, 
schools of clothing manufacture in New York City. This city could 
also easily support two or three dozen specific types of schools of indoor 
salesmanship respectively for shoes, groceries, insurance, builder's hard- 
ware, and books. 

How can we determine whether, in a given field of work, it is de- 
sirable that school vocational methods of training be substituted for ap- 
prenticeship or "pick-up" methods? In exactly the same way that in 
the past it was determined to substitute medical colleges, normal schools, 
schools of dentistry, professional training of nurses, and schools of 
journalism for less effective methods. 

We can ascertain by careful study, for example, how far "pick-up" 
methods of training for any species of farmer, home-maker, factory 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 393 

operative, or miner now prove wasteful, in the first place, to the indi- 
viduals seeking to serve in these callings. In the second place, we can 
ascertain how well or how badly society at large is served through pres- 
ent methods. 

Close study of the kind here suggested will conclusively prove that there 
are to-day literally scores of fields in which neither schools nor effective 
apprenticeship are found, and in which existing "pick-up" methods are 
a fruitful source of misfitting, of chronic discontent, of perma- 
nently lowered efficiency, and of prevailing absence of "pride in work- 
manship." 

What will be the general characteristics of good vocational schools? 
There are, as has been noted, certainly more than two thousand distinc- 
tive vocations found in the United States. These are endlessly varied. 
Vocational schools for them must likewise be exceedingly variable. In 
some the term of training may have to extend over several years ; whilst 
in others only a few weeks may well suffice. In some, much useful work 
can be done on an "extension" basis; in others, full-time work will be 
the most economical. 

Some futile talk is now indulged in relative to bringing vocational 
schools into each town and city. But it must often happen, as it now 
happens in the case of professional schools, that only one or a few can be 
provided for a whole state. It will not prove practicable to bring the 
mountain to Mohammed ; he will have to go to the mountain. 

A few things are now certain as to- the pedagogy of vocational edu- 
cation. In every field it must build through and on practical experience 
of the most realistic sort. Even vocational-school men have heretofore 
tried excessively to teach people to swim without going near the water. 
The best schools now — nursing, farming, dentistry, and others — tie up 
closely with "productive work." That is the road of soundest evolution 
for all 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Abbott^ Edith. Women in Industry (Ch. 12, The Problem of Women's 
Wages). 

Adams, H. C. Description of Industry (Ch. 2, Classification of Indus- 
tries; Ch. 4, Factors of Production). 

BoGART, E. L. The Economic History of the United States (Ch. 19, 
Public Lands and Agriculture; Ch. 20, Application of Machinery 
to Agriculture; Ch. 22-32, Industrial and Commercial Expansion). 



394 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Brewer, J. The Vocational Guidance Movement (Ch. 6, The Young 
Worker). 

Cadbury, E. Women's Work and Wages (Part II, Women Workers). 

Clark, S. A. and Wyatt, Edith. Making Both Ends Meet (Ch. i, 
Income and Outlay of New York Saleswomen). 

Clay, Henry. Economics (Ch. 2, The Division of Labor). 

Dean, A. D. The Worker and the State. 

Eliot, C. W. The Tendency, to the Concrete and Practical in Modern 
Education. 

Hall, G. S. Youth {Ch. 3, Industrial Education). 

Lapp, J. A. Learning to Earn (Ch. 4, Industry and Educational Needs). 

Lee, F. S. The Human Machine (Ch. 6, Length of Working Day; 
Ch. 9, Labor Turnover). 

Link, H. C. Employment Psychology (Part IV, Selection and Re- 
tention of Workers). 

Morison, G. S. The New Epoch as Developed by Manufacture of 
Power. 

Myerson, a. The Nervous Housewife (Ch. 4, Housework). 

Parker, Cornelia. Working with the Working-Woman {Ch.. 7, Con- 
clusions). 

Schreiner, O. Woman and Labor (Ch. 1-3, Parasitism). 

Shaw, A. The Outlook for the Average Man (Ch. 2). 

Smith, W. R. Educational Sociology (Ch. 16, Vocational Aspects of 
Socialized Education). 

Tead, Ordway. The Instincts of Industry. 

Veblen, T. The Theory of Business Enterprise (Ch. 2, The Ma- 
chine Process). 

Ware, F. Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry (Ch. 2 and 
3, Efforts to Lay Foundations in England). 



CHAPTER XXX 

SOCIAL EDUCATION: SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE experience of each one of us with social groups proves the 
numberless needs of social education — that is, of the various kinds 
of moral, civic, and religious education — which promote friendly and co- 
operative relationships between us and the other members of our large 
and small community groups. Sociological studies all emphasize that 
need. Social groups, from the family to the nation, from a village party 
to an international church, may succeed measurably in coercing their 
members into some sort of union and joint effort — but the process is 
expensive and precarious, as the history of all arbitrary control and domi- 
nation proves. Far more efifective and far more in accordance with the 
ideals of democracy is education for good group membership — provided 
we know how to carry on such education. 

In one form or another, social education is, of course, found every- 
where now. Every older child in the family group helps in the social 
education of his young brothers and sisters. Every natural leader, from 
five to eight)^ years of age, is incessantly contributing to the social edu- 
cation of those whom he can influence. Church, club, trade union, and 
political party are all to be included among the active agencies of social 
education. 

But all of these informal, even though vigorous, forms of social edu- 
cation fall far short of the needs of the complex societies of to-day. 
As shown in other chapters of this book, the modern world, both in its 
fully civilized and in its partly civilized areas, has developed number- 
less interdependencies extending over wide areas and capable even of 
affecting generations yet unborn. We are apt to think of these inter- 
dependencies in political or economic terms, because these are the most 
tangible and visilDle; but in fact most of them lie far deeper. Culture, 
religions, family life, and the spirit of fellowship are all being pro- 
foundly affected. Hence the need for more systematic, far-reaching, and 
purposive social education. The already rich experience of each one 
of U3 makes readily possible the kinds of interpretation suggested by these 
questions : 

I. What are the educative means by which children are "socialized" within 
the family group ? Discuss separately the ordinary means of producing vari- 
ous specific forms of : cooperation and mutual aid ; truthfulness ; reliability ; 
decency and order. 

395 



396 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

2. What are some of the means by which adolescent members of the 
neighborhood are socialized? Discuss various specific forms of social pres- 
sure, training-, and penalization against : theft, destruction of property, un- 
truthfulness, obscenity, lack of cooperation in emergencies, general dis- 
orderliness. 

3. Of what means have you read by which the recent entrant into voca- 
tional groups is disciplined to the group standards? Separately consider 
groups of : sailors ; employees in a bank ; labor unions ; scholars in a college ; 
soldiers. 

4. Sociability groups are very often exclusive. Explain justification for 
this, first in their desires to procure only those who can most completely 
reciprocate the values of fellowship, and, on the other hand, in their desires 
to exclude unharmonious individuals. What are various processes by which 
members, tentatively accepted into fellowship groups, are more adequately 
shaped to the standards of these groups? What qualities or appreciations 
of value in individuals are most powerfully appealed to in the processes? 
Explain, in terms of socialization, popular fears, at least among certain 
classes, of being thought: odd; dishonorable; unfaithful; ignorant of the 
"right way to do things." Show how these and other forms of sensitiveness 
are easily enlisted in procuring social conformities. Are the social con- 
formities thus procured always or commonly "good for society in the long 
run" ? Give examples of striking exceptions. How do you define : con- 
science ; respect for Mrs. Grundy ; "honor" as the adolescent young man 
feels it; "honor" as the aristocratic soldier feels it; "honor" as the middle- 
aged woman of prominent social position feels it; and "honor" as the trusted 
banker feels it? 

5. What are the reasons for the pronounced difficulties of obtaining (a) 
economic cooperations, (b) dispositions to render full justice, and (c) fellow- 
ship, as between different social groups representing : quite unlike vocations ; 
different races ; different educational or sumptuary levels ; different sexes ; 
different ages? What are some of the means that modern education is em- 
ploying to overcome various historic antagonisms between these several 
groups? Is it always desirable that such antagonisms should be reduced or 
abandoned ? Why ? 

6. Does it appear to you that competition or antagonistic relationships usu- 
ally exist in the plant world, either between different species, or between 
individuals of the same species ? Do trees compete for soil, space, and sun- 
light as fiercely as do primitive human beings? Do animals tend to multiply 
in such ways that the weaker are perpetually being driven to the wall and 
that only the stronger survive? 

7. Can you interpret human tendencies toward group formation as simply 
one means of survival? Does the strengthening of the group life in one 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 397 

people tend to endanger even the existence of another people that makes 
less progress in developing strong group organizations? 

8. Can you, therefore, interpret processes of socialization primarily as means 
of insuring more extensive and more prolonged security, better health, 
more wealth, fuller justice, and the like? 

9. Analyze some of the difificulties encountered in holding several million 
people together in the compact social grouping known as a nation. Contrast 
these difficulties in times of peace and in times of peril from other nations. 
Analyze the various means that social groups have adopted for the inculcation 
of patriotism. Consider separately : flags ; patriotic music ; painting ; memorial 
monuments ; festival or commemorative days ; the leadership of kings, com- 
manders, and other superiors; and, finally, alleged divine blessings on national 
aims. Recall historic instances of struggles for nationality by the United 
States ; Poland ; Ireland ; Greece ; the Confederate States ; and the Philippines. 
Why should people "love" their nation, but not an international group ? 

10. What are some of the effective means now used by churches for social 
education ? 

11. Give sociological interpretations of the vendetta or feud, and show why 
the state must sternly repress that form of securing justice. 

SOCIAL EDUCATION DEFINED ^ 

Social education should be so defined as to include all purposive adjust- 
ments of an educational nature whereby individuals are fitted for more 
effective group participation. A large proportion of these educative 
processes are carried on by other than school groups. The numberless 
varieties of family discipline are chiefly to be interpreted as manifesta- 
tions of social education. So also are the varied means by which, on 
playground and in neighborhood life, children from one to eighteen years 
of age are shaped by others of their same age and sex through coopera- 
tive play and other activities. The chief minor function in any religious 
congregation is the social education of its members. Every form of eco- 
nomic cooperation is in greater or less degree accompanied by the pur- 
posive educational adaptation of the younger or lesser influential members 
to the standards set by the old or more influential. The various historic 
processes of moral training and of civic education are to be evaluated 
as parts of social education. 

The instinctive foundations of group life are especially manifest every- 
where among children, but can also be deciphered in all adult groups. 

^ See D. Snedden, Civic Education 



398 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Some of the strictly social instincts, such as sociability, friendship, sym- 
pathy, pity, generosity cooperation, love, maternal affection, and the like, 
are readily manifest. Others are more composite and obscure, such as 
the various species of the sentiments of loyalty, patriotism, philanthropy, 
and domination, which undoubtedly have their roots in the "original na- 
ture" of man. For the practical purpose of education, it is essential to 
realize that the various social instincts furnish merely the raw materials 
and initial impulses whereon education must build. Very rarely, indeed, 
are social relationships, established on a purely instinctive basis, adequate 
to the needs of civilized life. One of the most deep-rooted social instincts 
is maternal affection; yet uneducated maternal affection forms an exceed- 
ingly poor foundation for the upbringing of children under contemporary 
conditions. The social instincts that draw together young men and women 
are deep-rooted, but in an uneducated form they provide for insecure 
foundations for modern family life. No less in need of education are 
the individualistic instincts of jealousy,, envy, rivalry, and pugnacity, 
which usually require drastic transformation, if not indeed repression, 
in order that the possessors may be adjusted to the requirements of the 
complex cooperations which civilized life calls for. 

The major varieties of social education are moral education, civic edu- 
cation, and religious education. These overlap to some extent. Never- 
theless the central fields of each are fairly distinct, even where some 
relatively abstract social "virtue" — e. g., loyalty, cooperation, good will, 
or love — is valued under that name in each. The determining purpose 
in every case is to render the social groups more effective — for their col- 
lective ends, and also as means to "life more abundantly" for the indi- 
viduals composing them. 

The aims of moral education are determined largely by the require- 
ments of "small-group" life.^ Under historic conditions, other agencies 
than schools have been chiefly responsible for moral education. Each 
such agency, as the home, the neighborhood community, the church, the 
boys' gang or clique, the 'police power, and the vocation, has undertaken 
to train its members in the specific varieties of orderly behavior, truth- 
fulness, property honesty, industriousness, loyalty, chastity, and temperance 
that seemed appropriate to its needs. The ultimate blendings of the 
various ideals, insights, habits, and appreciations thus produced in a nor- 
mal environment commonly sufficed to produce what might properly be 
called "well rounded" moral character. Every school group — including 

^ See suggestive analysis in C. E. Rugh, Moral Training in Public Schools (Boston, 
1907). 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 399 

authorities and followers — rigorously disciplines its own members toward 
effective participation in school-group life. Such virtues as orderly move- 
ment, abstinence from interfering speech, modest deportment, strict truth- 
fulness in oral and written statements, and due regard for the school 
property of others, have always been rigorously striven for because of 
the disastrous effects on the work of schools if other courses were per- 
mitted. Incidentally, all schools, but especially those consciously serving 
the larger purposes of religious and political organizations, have attempted 
to instill general ideas and ideals of morality. Under the almost completely 
authoritarian social controls, both of a political and religious nature, that 
prevailed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, and that have been 
persisted in in one form or another down to the present day in Prussia, 
many of the problems of moral education in schools were comparatively 
simple. The gradual abandonment of authoritarian control has multi- 
plied the difficulties of general moral education under ordinary school 
conditions. Problems of moral education in schools, as respects both 
aims and methods, are incessantly debated among educators everywhere ; 
but, like Mark Twain's reference to talk about the weather, "little is ever 
done about it." 

The fact is, of course, that, even under the most favorable conditions, 
by far the major portion of the motal education of young people, and 
especially those under ten or twelve years of age, must be effected through 
other agencies than schools. If and when the school is to function in 
this matter at all, it is clearly in a residual capacity. Until, therefore, 
the minor and complementary functions of schools in moral education 
are more clearly defined than they are at present, it may well be doubted 
whether anything can or will be done about it. 

Civic education, meaning thereby adjustment to the large federate or 
secondary groups that society forms, presents conditions far different 
from those attending moral education. Here the effective educative func- 
tions of non-school agencies are relatively small. It may well become a 
primary function of school and college in the future to define objectives 
of education for citizenship which shall far transcend in importance and 
• purposiveness any such education that may be effected through non-school 
agencies. It is this ideal that gives momentousness to contemporary pro- 
posals for the further evolution of civic education. 

Religious education is designed primarily to produce the right social 
relationships between man and deity. Religious interpreters give concrete 
expression to ideals and standards of conduct which, it is believed, are in 
harmony with divine will. Naturally, these standards, under the influence 



400 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of socially wholesome religious systems, reflect the loftiest social aspira- 
tions of which men in considerable numbers are capable of conceiving. 
State or public schools seem, to have diminishing functions in the field 
of religious education, wherever denominational rivalries are acute. 

CITIZENSHIP FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE 

AH men and women constituting the large and small social groups of 
America are now citizens in some capacity. The vast majority are fairly 
good citizens as respects many civic virtues — especially those of civic 
conformity. They are also fairly good citizens when very specific de- 
mands for civic "initiatory" virtues are made — either by so concrete a situ- 
ation as the call to a defensive war, to the relief of a famine- or earth- 
quake^stricken distant region, or to a war of independence or a war for 
the liberation of slaves where a good case for such war is made out by 
competent leaders. 

We must assume that, by reasonable standards, the controlling majori- 
ties of Americans in the various colonies in 1776 were moderately good 
citizens (though it is doubtful whether they averaged a third-grade school 
education!) The men of 1861 who took up arms for the defense of the 
union or for "states' rights" were in the main good citizens (though they 
too, probably, averaged something less than our fifth grade in schooling). 
And surely none of us will impeach the fundamental good civic intent 
of the millions who in 1917 defended our public interests, even whilst 
the threatened dangers were still afar off. 

■ But these citizens owed most of their civic education to other agencies 
than schools — even though the latter had assured at least such essential 
foundations as literacy and a partial knowledge of essential geography 
and American history. "Life," as we sometimes vaguely put it, had 
done much to make them good members of their colonies or states, their 
religious denominations, their political parties, their nation. That life 
meant, at the base, membership in fairly good families ; it meant free- 
dom of association with better — and worse — men than themselves ; and it 
meant freedom and opportunity to own property, to roam, and to acquire 
through numberless channels the ideals, aspirations, appreciations, and 
insights that constitute "Americanism" in the best sense of that much 
abused word. 

Good conservative citizenship, it is often alleged, has been a prevail- 
ing contribution of our landowning farmers. Everywhere among us 
we also recognize business men's organizations, artisans' organizations, 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 401 

women's clubs, and racial groupings that attest to ability of our so- 
cieties to educate men toward citizenship with only moderate aid from 
schools. 

It is, of course, a sociological commonplace that in any class group, or 
other aggregation, some are good, some mediocre, and some bad citizens, 
when measured by any standard we may elect to employ. The critical 
test is found in the proportions of each. Owning farmers are commonly 
ranked high as citizens, not because there are no murderers, defaulters, 
or bribe-takers among them, but because these are not sufficiently nu- 
merous to corrupt the whole. Certain groups of recent immigrants are 
not devoid of public-spirited, democratic leaders ; but such immigrants 
may invite public disesteem because they produce so little of this leader- 
ship that its presence can hardly leaven the mass. 

CIVIC SHORTAGES 

What, then, are the shortages in American citizenship of to-day, or 
probably to be expected in that of the next generation, which justify de- 
mands for better civic education in and through schools? These do not 
admit of ready diagnosis, once we leave behind us the easy paths of as- 
piration and naive generalization. First, we need to ascertain current 
changes in demands on civic virtues; second, the various kinds of civic 
virtue require analysis and evaluation ; and third, particular "case-groups" 
of citizens must be studied. The complexity of the problems involved can 
best be exhibited through an illustrative example. 

Owning farmers of the Northern Mississippi Valley states, omitting 
those of foreign birth and confining ourselves to those over thirty-five 
years of age, may be found to constitute a "case-group" of manageable 
proportions. A sociological student of this group would probably re- 
port these farmers as being prevailingly law-abiding, property-respecting, 
and patriotic. They favor such public utilities as courts, schools, roads, 
food inspection, and quarantine, but it is alleged that their standards for 
these utilities are excessively economical and low, growing out of their 
own hard struggles to acquire economic independence. 

From the beginnings of settlement of these regions, the farmers have 
felt the pressures of certain economic forces to degrees almost unprece- 
dented in American or even European history. Until very recently (and 
even yet in times of crop movement) they have been a heavy debtor 
people, owing money on mortgages to Eastern lenders. Second, their 
markets lie at a distance, involving not only great diffi.culties of transport, 



402 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

but opening tempting opportunities to railroads, packers, and commission 
merchants to form predatory monopolistic combinations. 

In large economic matters these owning farmers have often been be- 
wildered, suspicious, and easily deluded by political will-of-the-wisps. 
They do not to-day greatly favor "greenback" currency, free silver, or 
government ownership of railroads, having lost faith in these once cher- 
ished panaceas. But, under the pressures of hard times, high prices, or 
other difficulties, they again seem to flounder in the bogs of economic 
uncertainty. Their more disinterested advisers preach "cooperation" to 
them incessantly — cooperative buying, cooperative marketing, cooperative 
ownership of the more expensive farming .machinery, cooperative pack- 
ing. But these farmers respond slowly and reluctantly. Often they have 
little confidence in the technical experts whom they must employ. In other 
words, though modern economic conditions have forced these farmers to 
buy from distant markets and to sell to even more distant ones, 
they are poorly educated, as yet, in matters of "large-group" economic 
performance. Perhaps this is their most conspicuous "prevailing" civic 
shortage. 

Can courses in school civic education be devised that will somewhat 
remedy this defect in the next generation? Undoubtedly, though the 
process will not be simple. But we now force or induce many of the 
sons of these farmers to study algebra and plane geometry. The con- 
crete problems of every-day economics are not more complex than large 
proportions of the silly and irrelevant problems we find in our mathe- 
matical textbooks. 

The training of the prospective voter is a large part, but by no means 
all, of properly defined civic education. What is voting, and what kinds 
of demands does it make on the individual? Right dispositions, right 
understanding, and right industriousness are obviously needed. What do 
these actually mean for the several levels of intelligence, vocational en- 
grossment, and social experience found among our various citizens? We 
have almost no scientific knowledge as yet. 

Year by year grows the complexity of the issues upon which voters 
must pass judgment, or delegate the passing of judgment to their repre- 
sentatives. Amendments to state constitutions are now frequently sub- 
mitted. Municipal, state, and even national elections involve far-reaching 
issues that only incidentally follow lines of party cleavage. Is it to be 
expected that schooling can make voters of various levels of intellectual 
and moral ability "competent" to pass judgment on these? In one way 
or another, obviously, that is a problem for democracy. 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 403 

Can a democracy so train its voters — as stockholders in the great civic 
corporations of county, municipaHty, state, and nation — either (a) to rely 
upon their own wisdom where issues are simple, or (b) to choose and 
follow expert advice where issues are involved? If it can not do so, it 
is doubtful whether "large-group" democracy can persist. 

But these ends are now practically realized in other fields where prob- 
lems become difficult. Even the moderately well educated man to-day 
(a) relies upon his own knowledge in preventing and curing minor 
physical ailments; but (&) he consults expert speciaHsts when he has rea- 
son to suspect that eyes, appendix, or digestion are threatened. Every 
citizen once possessed enough of all available technical knowledge neces- 
sary to make safe decisions in the road-paving issues presented to him. 
Now he may still decide for himself as to the paving of the private paths 
near his house, but he employs engineering experts to select materials and 
lay the paving of automobile highways. 

UNSETTLED PROBLEMS 

We may well expect civic education, in theory and practice, to make 
rapid progress during the next few years, owing to the keen apprecia- 
tions of its values that now exist, and the wide vistas of its opportunities 
that are rapidly being opened up. But it is important at the outset that 
we recognize the various unsolved problems that still exist in this field. 
Here, as elsewhere, in determining educational objectives, we are sadly 
in need of more accurate terminology. We shall also need constant ref- 
erence to concrete case-groups if we are to avoid excessive abstractness. 

The words "citizen" and "citizenship" seem almost hopelessly elastic 
for present purposes. Certain legalistic uses of the terms are greatly at 
variance with popular usages. Under some conditions, the words "good 
citizen" seem to include all the qualities commonly comprised under the 
words "good man." In other connections, the phrase denotes social 
qualities almost exclusively of a political nature. In any group of edu- 
cators, or others interested in social phenomena, problems like the fol- 
lowing will provoke many unlike interpretations : 

a. Is training in penmanship an essential part of education for citizen- 
ship? 

b. Should instruction in hygiene be considered a part of education 
for citizenship? 

c. Can a person who does not know how to read be nevertheless a 
"good American citizen" ? 



404 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

d. Should the study of Latin or of medieval history be expected to 
contribute to good citizenship? 

e. Are the following statements necessarily more or less self-contra- 
dictory ? 

(i) Smith is a good farmer, but a bad citizen. 

(2) Jones is a thoroughly dishonest and untruthful business man,, 
but he is a good citizen, nevertheless. 

(3) Mrs. Brown is a model wife and mother, but a bad citizen. 

(4) Mr. Black is a notoriously immoral man, but a good citizen. 

(5) Old Joe, the negro, has excellent health and is a most faithful 
worker, but he is a bad citizen. 

(6) James, fourteen years old, is an admirable son and pupil, but a 
negligent and unsatisfactory citizen. 

(7) Pemberton is one of our admirable citizens. He works hard, looks 
well after his family, never gets into debt, never takes any part in politics, 
church affairs, or trade unions, and he attends strictly to his own affairs. 

(8) Many of our recent immigrants are God-fearing, industrious, and 
law-abiding, but they are far from being good citizens. 

/. To what extent are these affirmations unsound ? 
(i) Trade education is well enough in its place, but it contributes noth- 
ing to good citizenship. 

(2) Why spend public money teaching French? A man who reads 
French is no better citizen than one who does not. 

(3) We teach hygiene for the sake of the individual himself, but not 
for the sake of his citizenship. 

(4) Teaching arithmetic will probably help an individual in his strictly 
business relationships, but these have nothing to do with his citizenship. 

(5) Teaching our boys to be fond of good fiction is good in its way, 
but it has no bearing on education for citizenship. 

(6) Most of our great artists, inventors, and scientists are indif- 
ferent, if not bad, citizens. 

g. A man's social relationships and responsibilities are often conceived 
as of two classes or orders — "private" and "public." A resulting implica- 
tion is that his citizenship is to be judged on the basis of his "public" 
attitudes and actions. Can we properly hold that: 

(i) A man's care of his health is a private affair and has no bearing 
on his citizenship, except when he becomes an actual or potential source 
of contagion or infection? 

(2) A man's treatment of his children has no bearing on his good citi- 
zenship, except as he sets a public example that is likely to be imitated? 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 405 

(3) Whether a man works hard or loafs is his own affair and has no 
bearing on his quaHties as a citizen, as long as he does not make himself 
dependent upon others? 

It is probable that popular usage has made of the word "citizen" a term 
almost, if not wholly, inclusive of all good qualities — absurd as that may- 
seem. The term "good citizen" is practically synonymous with "good 
man," "socially efficient" man (or woman, or child). "Education for 
citizenship" may therefore be taken to mean what education of all kinds 
has always meant — education for manhood, for useful service, for culture, 
for health. For purposes of making useful distinctions among educa- 
tional objectives or procedures, we may have to abandon the term citi- 
zenship altogether, leaving it to the aspirational writers and speakers. 

The words "civic," "civics," and "civism" are, ©n the other hand, suf- 
ficiently free from embarrassing connotations to be well adapted to edu- 
cational discussion. Civism should be used to denote "devotion, adherence, 
or conformity to civic principles." Civics denotes the studies of civic 
rights and duties, that is, those that pertain to "large social groups," espe- 
cially in their more political aspects. 

The words "social," "moral," and "civic" are defined elsewhere, but 
some of their further applications need consideration here. All relation- 
ships between or among human beings are social relationships. Devo- 
tional relationships between men and deities — postulated as possessing 
"manlike" qualities — are also included as social, thus giving three funda- 
mental, and in large measure mutually exclusive divisions — moral (or 
small group), "civic" (or large group), and religious. Numberless sub- 
divisions of social qualities can be made — marital, fraternal, parental, 
communal, economic, sociability, convivial, political, patriotic, etc. 

Moral education aims primarily to make man fit for his small-group 
relationships — family and associate groups. Civic education aims pri- 
marily to make man fit for his large federate group relationships, of 
which the political groups — city, state, nation — now receive chief con- 
sideration. Religious education is designed to insure right relationships 
between men and deities. 

Federate groups are made up of constituent or component associate 
groups. Therefore good federate membership often implies good asso- 
ciate membership in the component groups. 

Some federate groups — religious denominations, vocational unions, cul- 
tural associations, political parties — are exclusive in their membership. 
These require for good federate membership only good associative mem- 
bership in related or component groups. Hence a man may be a good 



4o6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

soldier, business man, or club man, even if he be otherwise a bad father, 
a quarrelsome neighbor, or immoral person. 

But other federate groups, including city, state, and nation, are in- 
clusive; hence the sum total of virtues required for them includes the 
individual's associate (neighborhood or folk) membership in the com- 
munity. Here, therefore, he trails behind him all his qualities, individual 
and social, from his smaller groups. 

Citizenship is not considered primarily with reference to vocation ; but 
the vocationally unfit man is to that extent a defective or bad citizen. 
Personal health, personal culture, personal thrift, and personal fighting 
powers are not primarily the objectives of civic training; but, to the extent 
that the citizen lacks right qualities here, he fails of being the most serv- 
iceable or tolerable citizen. 

So with associate and exclusive federate group membership. Good 
citizenship requires the man to be a good son, husband, father, union man, 
church man, club man, political party man, to the extent that these group 
memberships make him in any way better. 

Individual education aims, therefore, to make the man healthy, voca- 
tionally competent, and culturally strong in himself, the whole being of 
course given a social setting of ideals and insight. 

Moral education aims primarily at the family and associate group vir- 
tues, with only incidental reference to virtues of individualistic character. 

Civic education aims primarily at associate and federate community 
group virtues, with only incidental reference to individual family and 
exclusive association and federate group virtues. 

Until psychology shall produce a more serviceable terminology de- 
scriptive of the distinguishable qualitative elements in social virtues and 
vices, much use will have to be made of the following terms as indicative 
of certain classes of social qualities : instincts, appreciations, aspirations, 
knowledge, particular habits, general habits, ideals, and powers. 

These terms obviously overlap, that is, the qualities denoted merge in 
a measure into each other. In some cases the terms are not strictly cor- 
relevant. But within the focal areas of the numberless specific qualities 
roughly denoted by each term are many, if not a majority, as to which 
there is little confusion among practical thinkers. 

The term "social instincts" should be used to cover all qualities, includ- 
ing impulses, usually recognized as part of the "original nature" of man 
(as opposed to acquired or learned reactions). 

The term "social appreciations" is intended to be restricted to valua- 
tions in which large feeling elements are found. Social tastes, prejudices. 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 407 

likes and dislikes, affections, and antipathies are included. Obviously the 
qualities signified often shade into general habits (attitudes) on the one 
hand, and into ideals, desired goals, approved standards of aspiration 
on the other. When valuations become largely intellectualized and devoid 
of feehng elements, they may correspond with social knowledge {e.g., 
of right and wrong, the clear-cut dictates of conscience). 

The term "social aspirations" covers qualities in which desire is the 
dominating element, valuation, ideal, and knowledge being relatively faint. 

The term "social knowledge" will be used as nearly synonymous with 
social insight, social intelligence, and social understanding. By implica- 
tion, feeling elements are here faint, and appreciations, when they are 
present, are strongly rationalized. 

"Particular social habits" will include definite manners, habits, reac- 
tions to specific conventions, conformities, etc. 

"General social habits" will include attitudes, prejudices, etc. 

"Social ideals" is to be used, in a somewhat restricted sense, as includ- 
ing all fairly well defined desired goals of social effort, the dominant 
factor being clearness of objective. 

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 

The social sciences include all those dealing primarily with human re- 
lationships — ethics, economics, politics, civics, anthropology, ethnology, 
criminology, theology, genealogy, social psychology, sociology, educational 
sociology, rural sociology, etc. History in its various aspects — world his- 
tory, English history, industrial history, the history of banking, etc. — is 
here included as of the social sciences, it being assumed, however, that 
the non-historical (in the broadest sense the "natural") sciences are de- 
signed primarily to determine general principles and natural laws, whilst 
the historical sciences are designed primarily to record and report ac- 
curately the "event," the unique occurrence. 

Sociology is defined as the inclusive social science, of which all other 
social sciences are specialized divisions or liaison departments. Sociology 
seeks to discover, classify, and interpret all the essential facts of human 
group relationships. Social psychology, medical sociology, or even eco- 
nomics could be interpreted as liaison departments, since each includes 
social interactions with non-social situations. 

The "social virtues" designate approved qualities, as these tend to 
express themselves in what is believed to be good social action. The 
"social vices," similarly, are disapproved qualities, tending to express 
themselves in bad social action. 



4o8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Naturally, virtues and vices may consist, in given cases, chiefly of habits, 
of ideals, of appreciations, etc. But the psychological compositions of 
virtues and vices are chiefly of interest to those who seek to deal with 
them constructively (or educationally) — officers of the law, agencies for 
the relief of dependents, employers, educators, and the like. These 
workers find that virtues and vices often have their sources far back in 
heredity or the "nurturing" effects of early environment; that, at any given 
time in the life of the individual, the character of his aspirations, appre- 
ciations, and ideals (as sources, or at least indices, of social motive power 
or desire) may have a largely determining part in the character or degree 
of his virtuous or vicious practices ; that at other times his range of 
habituations may be dominant factors ; and that under still other circum- 
stances the presence or absence of right social knowledge may be de- 
termining. 

The adjectives "conformist" and "initiatory" may well be used to include 
respectively the virtues of submission, and the virtues of antagonism or 
revolt toward specific external controls or limitations. The conformist 
virtues include : submission to authority, obedience to laws, rules, etc. ; 
acceptance of conventions; deference to will of majorities; following 
of leadership ; and the like. The initiatory virtues are those of justifiable 
revolt, insistence on rights, independence of the moral judgment of others, 
demands for freedom of thought, expression, and action, etc. Social 
conformity and social initiative may both, of course, be intelligent or 
unintelligent, socially helpful or socially imhelpful; and either may also 
be motivated in appreciations, ideals, and aspirations. 

The word "authoritarian" should be used as generally describing con- 
trols of body, will, ideals, aspirations, and the like without much intelli- 
gence or reason on the part of the subject. Medieval forms of control 
in political, religious, family, and even vocational groups are commonly 
assumed to have been of the authoritarian order. Democracy, the sci- 
entific spirit, freedom of thought and speech, "modernism," imply em- 
phasis on independence ■ of judgment, freedom from traditionalism, un- 
conventionality, etc., and therefore departures from an authoritarian order. 

GENERAL VS. SPECIFIC SOCIAL VIRTUES 

Education suffers much from its free use of unanalyzed general terms, 
since these lead easily to the fallacies that a whole is like any one of its 
parts, that general virtues naturally arise from the teaching of one specific 
kind. 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 409 

Certain words, like loyalty, toleration, humaneness, justness, sympathy, 
kindliness, honesty, truthfulness, diligence, cooperation, industry, and 
many others, are relatively inclusive and general. Unless used with qual- 
ifying terms, they may frequently involve contradictory elements or con- 
notations. 

Educators are, for example, urged to "teach loyalty." But social psy- 
chologists readily recognize in actual life scores of varieties of loyalties, 
ranging from those that are so near to instinctive tendencies that they 
spring up like weeds in the uncultivated areas of gang life, random com- 
panionship, and oppressed "small groups," to others so catholic and fine 
that only a few chosen spirits are ever capable of realizing them. 

The implications of the unqualified words "teach loyalty" are often 
obvious, of course, to the critical reader or hearer. But they do untold 
mischief among the uncritical, since they give specious support to faith 
in educational panaceas or "simples." "Boy Scouting," for example, 
evokes and develops in admirable fashion certain characteristic species 
of loyalty to fellows, town, country, king, and God. It is naturally com- 
forting to believe that these automatically give rise to others especially 
useful in adult life, such as loyalty to employers, to minority causes, and 
to esthetic ideals. In the absence of evidence, it is easy and natural to 
claim that well developed loyalty to one thing of good repute means loyal- 
ties to all other things of "good repute." But in practical life we are 
seldom seriously tempted to disloyalties, except when conflict of loyalties, 
all to things of good repute, comes. As long as loyalty to wife, mother, 
partner, and king involves no conflicts, the course is smooth. But prac- 
tically they do come into conflict, they clash, and that which has been 
most prepared for (by instinct in part, and by training in part) wins. 

Sociology finds life full of practical situations wherein one kind of 
toleration defeats another; one kind of cooperation a second; and justice 
to one set of factors means injustice to another. A man may be dili- 
gent in doing the devil's work no less than in doing God's ; just as his 
kindliness in one set of relationships may unavoidably entail cruelty in 
another. 

For practical purposes in civic education, therefore, it is desirable that 
the practice be adopted of designating civic virtues by terms significant 
of the actual relationship affected, after which it may become prac- 
ticable to evaluate the different species comparatively and to determine 
mutually opposed or concurrent elements. The phrases "loyalty to God," 
"loyalty to country," "loyalty to father and mother," "loyalty to chum," 
and "loyalty to ideals of personal honor" are all descriptive enough for 



4IO EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

practical purposes. Probably all terms that have come to possess varied 
connotations should be similarly scrutinized and given differentiation 
modifiers. 

The educational situation here discussed is obviously closely paralleled 
by that revealed a few years ago in connection with widespread criticism 
of the so-called doctrine of formal discipHne. It had long been cus- 
tomary freely to employ a variety of "omnibus" terms to denote aggre- 
gates of more or less similar, qualities. Thus we spoke of powers or 
faculties of observation, accuracy, imagination, concentration, judgment, 
inference, common sense, retentiveness (of memory), and the like. In 
somewhat similar spirit, it was customary to generalize about enthusiasm, 
"pep," moral purpose, hopefulness, "gumption," "sand," and numberless 
others. 

Well informed speakers perhaps make few mistakes in using these 
terms. Discussing concrete situations, they usually limit their terms to 
these situations automatically. But educators, seeking new orientations 
of objectives, encounter pitfalls. Perceiving that certain specific exercises 
tax in particular ways powers of observation, concentration, or reasoning, 
they deceive themselves and others by allowing the naive conclusion to 
spread that the "faculties" of observation, concentration^ and reasoning 
are respectively being "trained." 

CASE-GROUP ANALYSIS 

For purposes of practical civic diagnosis the citizenry of this country 
can be broken up into an indefinite number of case-groups, within each 
of which certain civic assets and shortages will be found to be "prevailing." 

Take, for example, "women school teachers, ages twenty-one to thirty." 
A few of these may be very unintelligent, immoral, or anarchistic. But they 
are not "prevailingly" so. Most of us would agree that they are prevail- 
ingly" intelligent, well disposed, moral, law-abiding, and in a kind of way 
altruistic. What are therr "civic shortages" as a class? Certainly not in 
disposition to evade or break laws — they are usually good conformists. 
How are they as respects the virtues of "leadership" ? Are they critical of 
misgovernment ? Are they reformers ? In case of war they would manifest 
their patriotism in scores of ways — that is, they would follow readily 
and patriotically the forces of law and order and strong nationalism. 
Obviously, we can only diagnose their civic shortages in terms of ex- 
pectations reasonably to be entertained as to persons of their sex, age, 
experience, and natural abilities. What are these? We possess no sci- 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 411 

entific analysis yet that is adequate. We often let Utopians tell what 
these persons "should be and do." Possibly that process is a good method 
of producing ideals. 

What of the civic qualities of these case-groups : 

a. Negroes, men, unmarried, having migrated from the South to North- 
ern cities, and now from thirty to fifty years of age? 

b. Immigrant Russian. Jews, men from thirty to fifty? 

c. College graduates, men, from thirty-five to sixty years of age, in 
business ? 

d. Artisan workers in highly organized trade unions ? 

e. Married women living in comfortable homes in suburbs? 

/. Colored women, ages twenty-five to forty, of less than average in- 
telligence, and of inferior economic position, in cities like Baltimore, Pitts- 
burgh, and Philadelphia? 

Case-groups could be multiplied. But as respects each it will ultimately 
be necessary to study, not only their civism in general, but specific qualities 
in it. What of the "American aspirations" of the Russian Jews ? What 
of the actual knowledge of economic issues possessed by the negro manual 
workers? What about the "self-sacrificing" characteristics of "college 
men in business"? 

PROBLEMS FOR TEACHERS 

On the assumption that departmental teachers of civic education will 
be provided for pupils upward of twelve years of age, the following are 
some of the problems that these teachers will encounter : 

I. To what extent can departmental teachers promote and utilize school 
government as a means of civic education? More particularly, (a) is it 
desirable that school government as a means of civic education be always 
used, or may it not prove more profitable to use it for short periods, 
during which its difficulties and its values may be appreciated by the 
learners, without imposing upon the school faculty the burden of keeping 
school self-government active at all times? Compare these problems with 
those of citizens temporarily taking charge of the maintenance of order, 
cooperative marketing, street cleaning, or some other collective function 
that under ordinary circumstances would be left to special agencies, {h) 
It should be noted that school self-government consists of several aspects : 
first, compliance with the rules and order of the school on the part 
of pupils ; second, the detection of violations and dealing with offenders ; 
third, the initiation of new approved policies. Normally, pupils in large 



412 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

schools might well be spared responsibilities for these latter, except at 
stated intervals when possibilities can be demonstrated. It should be 
remembered that, except in mystical pedagogy, the school group is a very 
limited and specialized social group, both from the standpoints of com- 
pliance with laws and rules, and also from the standpoint of initiating 
policies. 

2. To what extent can the teacher be expecfed to promote civic dra- 
matic, exploratory, and participation activities or projects? All of these 
offer important opportunities for civic education, but some of them clearly 
still make excessive demands upon time, energy, inventiveness, and powers 
of control both of teachers and pupils. The solution, obviously, is to 
have in clearly defined fo'rm (as now in "Scouting education") a very wide 
range of possible opportunities amply described, so that groups of students 
ready for vital experience can be given charge of the execution of projects 
fairly well within their reach, and not requiring too much of the teacher's 
time and energy. 

3. To what extent can civic education be effected through the organiza- 
tion of civic service or other projects? Three of the groups of means 
of civic education (dramatic activities, participation projects, and ex- 
ploration) lend themselves readily to the project form of organization. 
The essence of this method requires that there should be available for 
any individual or prepared group a wide range of projects from which 
they can choose. 

4. The teacher of the social sciences will encounter many problems of 
"freedom of teaching." He will frequently be brought into conflict with 
prevailing social attitudes, sometimes on the part of majorities, but more 
often on the part of minorities. It will not prove easy for such a teacher 
to steer between the extremes of avoiding all references to controversial 
questions or of appearing to be a partizan of factional doctrines, beliefs, 
or attitudes. 

5. The social philosophy of the teacher will be subject to some vicissi- 
tudes. He may find difficulty in interpreting the significance of the state 
as a social agency. 

a. It will readily be assumed that the state aids and supports the ex- 
istence of the millions of people who are its servants. On the other 
hand — 

h. The people exist and support the state, which is their instrumentality 
for achieving certain ends. Using the term "society" as the most inclusive 
designation of the people in any area and time, then the state may be 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 413 

interpreted as one of the numerous groups into which society develops 
and through which society works. 

c. The essence of the state hes in government, and the significance of 
its government is that normally it applies to all of the persons resident 
within a given area, whether they wish it or not. Government in modern 
life everywhere tends to multiply functions, and is often accompanied by 
the decay of custom. Government rests increasingly upon law. 

The anarchist is against all laws. He thinks a society of ideal men 
and Vomen would need no laws. But the anarchist is too prone to asso- 
ciate laws with penalties and unpleasant coercions. A constantly increas- 
ing proportion of modern laws consist simply of specific directions for 
orderly and safe procedure. They represent what in very simple societies 
could safely be left to custom. Statutes prescribing methods of land 
transfer, licensing for marriage or particular forms of business, regu- 
lating traffic and the sale of dangerous articles, and the like, are simply 
detailed directions which all reasonable persons are willing to accept. 
In many such statutes, penalties for non-compliance are simply in the 
nature of after-thoughts. 

6. The large opportunities for civic education probably lie in the 
area of adolescence — let us say, the six school years from twelve to 
eighteen. Prior to this time our children are in, but not of, the larger 
social groups, in any vital sense. They are active in the family, but not 
in the party. They participate in the congregation, but not in the church. 
They are of the primary neighborhood, but only vaguely in the county, 
municipality, state, or nation. They appreciate local economic exchanges 
and services, but they only vaguely apprehend what passes outside their 
personal contacts. They take large social relationships for granted, often 
quite incuriously, as they take air, the hills, the rain, and railroads for 
granted. 

But during adolescence our children's worlds expand rapidly. Their 
tendencies now are strongly centrifugal. Even in games intergroup com- 
petitions now make strong appeal. In the history of the race, boys of 
sixteen have been deemed old enough to take part in military campaigns. 
Hundreds of boys hardly over fourteen played various roles in the Ameri- 
can Civil War.^ 

Experience and development bring our adolescents rapidly to the stage 
where they can appreciate and share in adult activities — as is now evi- 

'An interesting picture can be found in an autobiographical story prepared for 
use in schools by C. W. Bardeen. 



414 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

clenced in such studies as mathematics, practical arts, pre-vocational sci- 
ence, and in travel. Here are the really great opportunities for civic 
education in schools. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Addams, Jane. Democracy and Social Ethics (Ch. 6, Educational 

Methods). 
Athearn, W. S. The Church School. 
Bagley, W. C. Educational Values (Ch. 15, School Environment as a 

Source of Educational Values). 
Baldwin, J. M. Social and Ethical Interpretation (Ch. 2, The Social 

Person). 
BuRCH, H. R. and Patterson, S. H. American Social Problems (Ch. 

24, Moral Progress). 
CoE, G. A. A Social Theory of Religious Education (Ch. 5, The Aims 

of Christian Education). 
Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. H. Ethics (Ch. i and 2, Early Group Life 

and Morality; Ch. 19, The Virtues). 
Fouillee, a. Education from a National Standpoint (Ch. i, 2, Book 

V, Moral and Social Education). 
GiLLiN, J. L. Poverty and Dependency (Ch. 33-34, Socialized Education 

and Recreation). 
GuLiCK, L. H. Popular Recreation and Public Morality. 
Hall, G. S. Youth (Ch. 12, Moral and Religious Training). 
Hart, J. K. Community Organization (Ch. 4, The Function of the Social 

Sciences; Ch. 5, The Democratic Ideal). 
Haworth, p. L. America in Ferment (Ch. 12, Our Defective Citizen- 
ship). 
Jenks, J. W. Citizenship and the Schools (Ch. i and 2). 
Johnston, C. H. The Modern High School (Ch. 21, The High School 

as a Social Center).- 
King, I. Education for Social Efficiency (Ch. 2, The Social Aim of 

Education). 
Nash, H. S. Genesis of the Social Conscience (Ch. 7, The Creation of 

the Reformer's Conscience). 
Nietzsche, F. A Genealogy of Morals (First Essay, Good and Evil; 

Second Essay, Bad Conscience). 
O'Shea, M. V. Social Development and Education (Part I, Genesis of 

Social Attitudes). 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 415 

RuGH, C. E. Moral Training in Public Schools. 

Spencer, H. Education (Ch. 3, Moral Education). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 11, The Social Codes; Ch. 15, the 

Mores Can Make Anything Right). 
Wallace, A. R. Social Enznronmcnt and Moral Progress. 
Wells, H. G. The Social Forces (pp. 390-397, The Ideal Citizen; pp. 

397-415, Some Possible Discoveries). 



CHAPTER XXXI 
CULTURAL EDUCATION: SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

ALL human beings, after infancy, possess interests, tastes, and in- 
sights that have little or no relationship to their physical, vocational, 
moral, civic, or religious needs or activities. Small children are naturally 
eager to explore their environments, to hear tales of the past, and to 
unravel the intricacies of the machines about them. These desires expand, 
differentiate, and take new directions throughout life. The adults among 
whom we live are found frequently listening to gossip, reading papers, 
attending the theater, traveling abroad, and reading books. The large 
majority of these activities lie quite outside, and unconnected with, their 
vocations ; and only occasionally and incidentally do they affect the health 
and civic activities of these citizens. 

All our associates possess these cultural interests and attainments in 
one form or another and in greater or less degree. Each one of us 
is capable of deriving some sociological interpretations through answers 
to questions like these : 

1. Some of your associates regularly read the Saturday Evening Post. 
Others are indifferent to that journal, but regularly read the Atlantic Monthly, 
Scribner's, and other similar magazines. What do these differing tastes sug- 
gest to you? 

2. Certain high-school pupils go twice a week to the "movies." They are, 
the parents say, excessively fond of dancing, and of all the music, light, dress, 
and fellowship that go with it. They read newspapers moderately, magazines 
very slightly, and heavier books hardly at all. In your estimation, are these 
youths : 

a. Now seriously "sho,rt" or "low-brow" in culture? 

b. Probably destined to be seriously deficient in cultural interests at forty 
years of age? 

c. Capable of being considerably elevated culturally by anything a typical 
high school can do? 

3. Leaving out recent immigrants, "poor whites" in the South, and illiterate 
negroes, what are to-day the "prevailing" cultural standards of most American 
adults, over thirty years of age, as respects : literacy ; general reading ; picture 
appreciation; appreciations and knowledge of world geography; same, world 

416 



i 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 417 

history; same, American history; appreciations of nature; avocational in- 
terests; cultural knowledge and appreciations of other human beings? 

4. Europeans sometimes assert : 

a. That American culture is crude, provincial, and "bourgeois." What are 
they trying to say ? 

h. That democracy is fatal to culture. Why and how? 

c. That much of our culture is "machine made." What does this mean? 

5. Can people, in your estimation, exhibit culture in: speech; manners; 
travel; habitual reading; their friendships; their choice of houses? 

6. What are the kinds and degrees of "ordinary culture" which you possess 
in common with nearly all other American-born adults who have had at least 
the benefits of five or six grades of elementary-school education? Separately 
consider : 

a. Your "performing" abilities in silent reading; letter writing; pleasing 
and effective speech; manners of social intercourse; decencies and "decent 
reticences" of social intercourse and behavior ; and abilities to "get about." 

h. Your tastes, appreciations, and persisting interests in reading of (i) 
newspapers, (2) magazines, and (3) books; in drama and photodrama; in 
pictures and illustrations; in personal dress; in music of several kinds; in 
nature ; as a naturalist ; in crafts, gardening, and other avocations lying outside 
your regular work; in sports in which you are not a usual active participant. 

c. Your marked contrasts in culture to other specified case-group ? 

7. As respects what phases of culture do you now feel yourself fairly well 
advanced and growing? In what respects do you make no pretenses beyond 
the lowest average ? If a year of free time and abundant money were given 
you for self-cultivation, along what lines would you seek further to educate 
yourself? What would be your first choice of means? Your second? 

8. Analyze your own present cultural attainments in the following fields, 
and their probable maximum development during next ten years, in the light 
of your present ambitions, time, and abilities (include only those appreciations 
in which you find substantial pleasure, and which you from time to time try 
to gratify by returning to the same sources) : pre-nineteenth-century poetry; 
Shakespearean drama as reading ; nineteenth-century poetry of England ; same, 
American, except Whitman; Whitman's poetry; "modern" poetry; standard 
classic fiction — Goldsmith, Fielding, Thackeray, and the like ; "high-grade mod- 
ern" fiction — Henry James, Conrad, and the like; popular modern fiction — 
specify types; classical music; nature exploration; philosophical thought; 
"social problems" thought. 

What tests of your present culture attainments, and self-developments 
toward higher standards, do you find in your persistently maintained contacts 
with: English magazines; highest grade American quarterlies or monthlies; 
same, weekly journals of opinion; illustrated popular magazines; library read- 
ings and others. 



4i8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

9. What are some of the signs by which you would recognize a family of 
superior culture, assuming the group to consist of father, mother, and four 
children from ages four to fifteen? Would you expect same interests or 
attainments in the children as in the adults? Would you expect the children 
to be progressively rising toward the standards of the adults? 

10. What are some of the signs by which you would expect to recognize 
in a small city — having a population perhaps of some twenty thousand — a 
"high level" of culture, which it is alleged to possess ? Would you expect to 
find ignorant persons, possibly illiterates, in it? Cheap "movies" and maga- 
zines? Poor taste in furniture? 

Would you expect to find clubs or select circles, cultivating higher interests ? 
What kinds, probably ? Would these center about special interests — some about 
concert music; some about dramatics; others about modern poetry? 

11. Recall three typical household groups of your acquaintance, and with 
reference to each, answer these questions : 

a. What is the general reading of the family group or individual members ? 
Separately consider: newspapers, magazines, borrowed (including library) 
books, owned books. To what extent did the supply of reading seem mark- 
edly short of their genuine cultural interests in reading? For what members 
were available supplies excessive ? 

b. What cultural interests did the members show in: music (kinds); photo- 
drama (preferences); nature and science; superior qualities in housing, fur- 
niture, dress (from what other motives besides good taste?), refined asso- 
ciations, intellectualized intercourse, speech, travel (motives?)? 

c. What were the members consciously doing to promote their own self- 
development along cultural lines ? 

d. What were they doing to promote the cultural development of others 
through some form of cooperative endeavor? 

e. Having in mind the native abilities and relatively unescapable environ- 
ments of these families, what seem to you to be reasonable upper limits of 
their cultural development in: appreciation of current political and scientific 
thought; appreciation of good music; development of amateur cultural hob- 
bies; reading of fiction; reading of poetry? 

CULTURE AND VOCATION ^ 

The activities of men can conveniently be divided into two main cate- 
gories — the productive and the utilizing. Under the highly organized 
conditions of modern life, fairly clear demarkations are made between 
the activities of work or vocation, and all others. A man's vocation com- 

* See Snedden, Vocational Education (Ch. 3, The Relation of General to Voca- 
tional Education) ; also, Snedden, Problems of Educational Readjustments (Ch. 3, 
What is Liberal Education?), 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 419 

monly conditions his cultural life in large measure, but does not consti- 
tute it. 

Primitive man was largely the consumer of his own products. While 
even far back there were probably small amounts of specialized service 
in magic, transmission of lore, and possibly in certain forms of plastic 
art, it must nevertheless have been largely true that, in the absence of 
trade, large aggregations of population, and stable residence, every adult 
must produce the "goods" needed by himself and his immediate de- 
pendents. Under these conditions each person's culture was closely in- 
terwoven with the activities by which he "produced" material commodi- 
ties, worship, music, moral controls, health, and the like, for himself 
and his family group. 

Contrast with such a primitive a worker taken from any one of a thou- 
sand channels of modern productive work. A coal-miner, for example, 
works underground from thirty-five to forty-five hours per week, taking 
down coal. His vocation involves almost no change of routine year in 
and year out. Many of its processes have become largely automatic. 
With his vocation are intimately bound up some very intense and narrow 
essential conditions — the clothes he must wear, the risks he must take, 
the tools and machines he must work with, the supervision he must 
respond to, and the associates with whom he must cooperate. 

But outside of his working hours, and for nearly all phases of his utili- 
zation, he lives in a completely different world. The clothes and foods 
he consumes derive from all quarters of the globe. Newspaper, phono- 
graph, and moving picture convey to him ideas, esthetic gratifications, and 
other stimuli, coming from near and afar, and often being the output 
of minds and talents of superior and highly specialized quality. His 
wife and children express the effects of vocational contacts radically 
diff'erent from his own. The short hours of his vocation leave him some 
leisure for the cultivation of a hobby — gardening, a variety of craftsman- 
ship, or the prosecution of some civic work. Most of his political re- 
sponsibilities are only remotely related to his vocation. 

In other words, a coal-miner may possess much or little culture, but 
nearly all of this will be due to contacts, appreciations, and activities 
lying outside his vocation. His coal mining has no bearing, directly, on 
those of his literary, artistic, scientific, political, or geographical interests 
which serve to enrich life. (His vocation may, of course, condition them 
— that is, it may or may not give him surplus wealth enough to gratify his 
tastes ; it may force him to live in an isolated or philistine environment ; 
and it may deprive him of leisure sufficient for the cultivation of hob- 



420 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

bies. But it is not the source nor the stimulus of his cuhural interests.) 

Not all workers find their vocational environment so completely de- 
tached from their cultural environment as do coal-miners. A high-school 
teacher of English subjects, for example, may carry over into her leisure 
hours many interests and tastes .derived directly from the requirements 
of her vocation. (It is submitted that not many do so, however, in Ameri- 
can schools as yet ! ) The teacher's dress, social manners, appreciations 
of associates, and incidental contacts with music and art, made in or 
through her school environment, may also largely serve her non-working 
hours in fulfilment of her cultural aspirations. Even when such a person 
travels for a month or a year, she is likely to utilize her opportunities in 
part to enlarge and enrich herself vocationally. 

Editors, ministers, artists, and statesmen often seem able largely to 
"blend" their vocational and their cultural activities. In the more primi- 
tive stages of law, medicine, engineering, and teaching there is much 
.merging of the two kinds of interests; but it seems that in more ad- 
vanced stages fairly complete separations are consciously promoted, hav- 
ing in view conservation of mental health, if no other reason. 

Professional and nearly alj other workers in our highly organized 
urban life tend steadily to draw sharp lines of demarkation between 
their vocational and their leisure season interests. They completely 
forget their vocations in non-working hours. The saner ones engage 
during these hours in vigorous recreative activities — cultural, social, 
physical. 

Not a little contemporary literature of social reform deplores these 
separations between vocation and "life" — as they mistakenly call it (as if 
vocation were not one of the most real and significant factors in life!). 
These writers, reflecting sometimes aspirations born of their own desires, 
and of the necessities imposed upon artists of identifying their vocations 
to a great extent with all their other activities, tend to deplore some 
vanished "Golden Age" when men's vocations were so large and rami- 
fying that they provecj vital well-springs of all needed culture. 

It is to be feared that these writers have not studied life, present or 
past, very objectively. The small farmer, home-maker, small shop- 
keeper, country doctor, sailor, and small hotel-keeper are workers between 
whose vocational necessities and cultural opportunities hardly any well 
defined lines can be drawn. Are they the richer therefor? Often they 
are culturally far more poverty-stricken than those rapidly increasing 
modern workers for whom the seven- or eight-hour day, the forty-four- 
hour week, represents the extent of their contact with vocation. 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 421 

Men and women who work in our factories, mines, department stores, 
office buildings, and on our railroads, following highly departmentalized 
callings, tend increasingly, outside of working hours, to throw off all 
signs of their particular vocational pursuits. Civic participation, social 
contact, collective or individual acculturation, become for them something 
quite apart from vocation, and inevitably so. The social order and edu- 
cation must adjust themselves to these as to the other conditions entailed 
by civilization. 

WHAT IS CULTURE? 

The word "culture" has various historical meanings and connotations. 
It will be used here to cover only those interests and attainments that are 
not tangibly and primarily vocational, civic, or health-producing. These 
interests and attaihmelits can best be appreciated through inductive study 
of individuals, and groups of individuals, of whom we all have some 
knowledge. Nearly all our adult associates have reading interests. Many 
are so fond of certain kinds of music that they are willing to spend 
time and money to hear the kinds they like. A large majority are more 
or less regular patrons of the photodrama. A few, at least, have genuine 
interests in some aspects of nature — woods, birds, crystals, botany, ge- 
ology. A small minority have so self-educated themselves that they are 
recognized as something of connoisseurs in modern poetry, historic paint- 
ing, period furniture, or old coins. 

Of every adult individual whom 'we know it is possible to show a kind 
of balance sheet of cultural assets and deficits. Outside of his daily work 
and his golf taken for physical recreation, the dentist, J. F., for example, 
does these things in substantial measure : he makes long excursions into 
the woods ; he reads a daily newspaper ; he takes much pleasure in well 
acted comedies; he considers himself a bit of a connoisseur in "Euro- 
pean" restaurants, and occasionally takes small parties to dinners in them ; 
and he enjoys playing chess at his club. 

On the other hand, J. F. has little or no interest in good music; he has 
never traveled, and does not greatly care to do so ; he is not interested in 
painting; and he rarely reads a serious magazine or patronizes either 
the photodrama or the "heavier" spoken drama. 

Every small or large social group is made up of individuals who, like 
J. F., are possessed of more or less culture. In a family group the 
mother may have superior musical and literary interests, the father none. 
In a village there may be only one person who cares for Browning or 



422 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Brahms, or who likes to read about the work of Rodin. A city of a 
hundred thousand may be unable to provide a score of supporters of 
high-grade choral music. It has often been remarked that a few hun- 
dred thousand well educated Englishmen, scattered throughout the Brit- 
ish Empire, create an effective demand for high-grade weekly, monthly, 
and quarterly magazines of opinion to the number of twoscore or more; 
whereas the people of the United States seem to give only niggardly sup- 
port to a couple of quarterlies, one or two monthlies, and a couple of 
weeklies devoted to the nurture of superior intellectual interests. 

The culture of a social group is a different thing, obviously, from that 
of an individual, especially where a heterogeneous group is considered. 
Where superior culture is closely associated with superior native intel- 
lectual abilities or esthetic appreciations, obviously not all the individuals 
of a group, can rise to levels of that culture. Certainly the young are not 
expected to do so until maturity. 

Probably the surest test of dynamic culture is its power of transmission 
as part of the social inheritance of a given group. Let us assume that 
in a given American city there are now one hundred persons possessed 
of genuine cultural interests in Shakespearean drama. Fifty years from 
now will there still be a hundred or more admirers of Shakespeare, or 
will this interest have "tapered out" ? Some English manufacturing cities 
seem to have possessed, in the period from 1830 to i860, relatively large 
numbers of working men and others who took keen intellectual interests 
in the study of nature — especially geology, astronomy, and botany. A 
considerable brood of amateur naturalists was produced. Local natural 
history museums were founded. These cultural interests, according to 
some accounts, have now largely atrophia, and no other interests of com- 
parable worth have taken their place. 

It may prove serviceable to sociological analysis to distinguish kinds 
of culture according as they are primarily intellectual, esthetic, social, 
physical, and avocational. Those kinds of interests and attainment that 
manifest themselves in serious reading of natural science, history, classic 
or niodern foreign languages and literatures, philosophy and current opin- 
ion, we can conveniently classify as intellectual. The cultural interests 
that center largely in music, drama, plastic and graphic art, esthetic 
dancing, and the culinary arts, we can call esthetic. Other cultural interests 
— here called the physical — center in the cultivation of bodily grace, 
strength, and specific powers rather as satisfactions in themselves than 
as means to physical health or vocational powers. These "sporting" in- 
terests we shall include under physical culture. Social culture includes 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 423 

manners, and all those interests in others that give satisfaction in them- 
selves—obviously, an overlapping classification with "fellowship" as a 
social end. Avocational cultural interests are of many kinds — gardening, 
photography, various kinds of craftsmanship, painting, embroidery, for- 
estry, live-stock breeding, wireless operating, and the like. 

Further analysis of our associates will show that some have superior 
esthetic, and inferior intellectual, cultural interests. Some of our "nat- 
urahst" friends have meager reading or art interests. Young men and 
women often go far in self-education toward "physical culture," whilst 
neglecting, as the rest of us think, their minds and their spiritual needs. 
Naturally, each one of us tends to criticize in others deficiencies of those 
qualities which we most afifect. The "low-brow" is often as contemptuous 
of the "high-brow" as the latter is of him. Men with well developed 
cultural interests in special fields of history find it hard to tolerate the 
respectful indifTerence of friends to their hobby. Probably in a democracy 
each form of culture, from prize fighting to Henry James, from jazz 
to symphony concerts, tends to develop its special brand of snobs. 

Culture of certain kinds is now widely diffused among Americans. All 
but a small minority of urban dwellers now read afternoon papers. The 
large majority attend moving-picture exhibitions. Probably a majority 
of all families have phonographs in their homes. All exchange opinion 
more or less freely on current topics. They are dimly aware, at least, 
of current happenings in politics, exploration, and scientific discovery. 
We spend more money on music than any other people. 

The prevailing standards of this culture in the general field of reading 
can be ascertained with rough accuracy by noting : the contents of widely 
circulated newspapers, including especially Sunday editions ; the contents 
and make-up of popular magazines, including those offered in quantities 
at railway and other news-stands ; the circulation of public libraries ; 
and the arrays of books offered in book stores, not neglecting those 
found in department stores. 

The variety and extent of prevailing popular interests in music can 
also be studied more or less objectively by obtaining data as to patronage 
of theaters and other agencies offering musical entertainment for sale, 
and by noting kinds of phonograph records sold. Outside of these, it 
would be proper to recognize the existence in many communities of select 
groups reproducing and supporting higher forms of music — the kinds that 
they hope to see popularized at some time hereafter. 

We are also a picture-loving people. Good newspaper and magazine 
illustration has gone far with us. Mechanical processes in photographic 



424 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

reproduction for printing have, like mechanical processes in music, en- 
abled the multitude readily to gratify their tastes up to a certain point 
of excellence. The evolution of the moving picture has been so rapid 
that an adequate appraisal of its "cultural" effects, either intellectually 
or esthetically, can probably not yet be made. But certainly it represents 
a sufficiently "democratized" art to satisfy the most socialized ! 

Applications of the harmonies of form and color are numberless among 
us, even though we seem to exhibit waning interest in painting and 
sculpture as relatively "pure" forms of art. All our buildings exhibit, 
crudely or finely, desires for plastic decoration and harmonious form. 
Tools, books, cars and automobiles, furniture, tableware, dress, rugs, dis- 
play windows — all of these express, in America, endless attempts, often 
conventional and not very sincere, it is true, to import beauty into the 
necessary surroundings and adjuncts of life. The scope of these efforts 
cai^eadily be observed, though their actual cultural effects as yet elude 
the social psychologist and educator. But we must not permit ourselves 
to be wholly guided by the complaints of the art critic here. His standards 
may be for the few, not for the many. 

DEMOCRATIZATION OF CULTURE 

The existence among any people of an aristocracy of birth, wealth, or 
power seems always to have led to highly specialized cultural demands, 
which in turn evoked numbers of trained producers of those who could 
supply them. These true "leisure classes," specializing frequently in es- 
thetic, and sometimes in intellectual, satisfactions, create far-reaching de- 
mands for art in all its manifestations. Powerful dynasties and churches 
have also been generous patrons of the arts that minister to the higher 
cultural interests — in some cases because monarchs and bishops really 
cared for the monuments and decorations they favored, and in others, 
doubtless, because they found along these lines convenient means of aristo- 
cratic display. 

Certainly there have been long periods during which it was assumed 
that "culture" was chiefly for the privileged only. That which was "com- 
mon" — even though it be folk-tale or song or dance, or a widely used 
form of dress, furniture, or tableware — was by virtue of its commonness 
denied recognition as a "culture" factor by cultured oligarchies. Prob- 
ably we have only partly recovered from that cultural snobbishness yet, 
even in democratic America. 

The democratization of culture is, however, now a social ideal in this 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 425 

and other countries. We wish to use the school as a means of assuring 
minimum standards for all. The improving economic positions of our 
people contribute to enhanced demands for the things that contribute 
to the satisfactions of leisure hours. The commercialization of cultural 
opportunities — through press, factory, pleasure resort, photodrama, and 
the rest — has also greatly contributed to the democratization of culture. 

But critics and connoisseurs are, obviously, intensely dissatisfied with 
some of the efifects of these processes. "The good is ever enemy of the 
best." How shall we advance our standards of taste, if there be no 
leisure class, no select circles, that take pride in their superior interests 
and attainments? If the many are satisfied with, and lend the support of 
their amassed patronage to, low-brow fiction, "jazz" music, and taste- 
less "movies," whence may we expect creativeness, elevated tastes, rising 
standards of appreciations? 

Cultural education thus becomes an object of social demand. Only 
through schools, or at least chiefly through ideals and appreciations which 
they can and should initiate, is the next generation to be prepared to 
demand better things for its culture than does the present. Our present 
achievements here are not to be despised. Already, as elsewhere indi- 
cated, we have made ourselves substantially a literate people, possessed 
besides of a considerable range of cultural appreciations of geography, 
history, current events, and general science. Only by contrasting our- 
selves with some truly unschooled peoples — to be found in certain parts 
of South America, China, or India — can we realize what advances we 
have already made. 

But large opportunities lie ahead. Probably the American high school 
has hardly more than begun to realize its opportunities for cultural edu- 
cation. Considering the select quality and large potentialities of our col- 
lege students, it may well be doubted whether present college offerings 
yet "function" to a profitable extent in cultural outcomes. Much can and 
will yet be done through publicly supported extension education for adults 
and communities. 

Cultural education in and through schools must, like physical, voca- 
tional, and civic education, derive its objectives ultimately from sociologi- 
cal analysis of shortages or defects now known to exist. What are 
these shortages at present — in Gopher Prairie, Chicago, or Cape Town? 
What are they in the United States among the illiterate, the college edu- 
cated, business men, the "smart set," farmers' wives, elementary-school 
teachers, trade unionists, the "movie fans"? What are they, for speci- 
fied classes, as respects the several forms of intellectual culture? Es- 



426 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

thetic? Physical? Avocational? The determination of these shortages 
opens up a series of problems with which educational sociology must 
increasingly concern itself. 

Shortages or defects of culture are easily to be discovered in any social 
group when we apply conventional tests or the subjective standards which 
we as critics have evolved. But it is much harder to define the harm- 
fulness of these shortages than it is to define the harmfulness of health, 
vocational, or civic shortages. In what ways are social groups, — from 
nations to families, — or individuals therein, either harmed or deprived 
of possible satisfactions by specific cultural shortages? We always tend 
to answer such questions out of our personal experience, with all its 
prepossessions and idiosyncrasies. American education has probably re- 
lied too greatly in the past on standards set by persons of special cultural 
attainments. It is not without some justification that the democratic 
philistine becomes contemptuous of "high-brow" and "Boston" culture. 

PROBLEMS OF CULTURAL EDUCATION 

Many problems of cultural education thus still puzzle statesmen and 
educators, because we have as yet but meager and fragmentary under- 
standing of the social significance and values of various specific forms of 
culture. Several forms of culture center in the esthetic sensibilities ; but 
we possess little light as to the genuine values of well developed appre- 
ciations of and powers of amateur execution in, particular fields of music, 
graphic arts, esthetic dancing, poetry, fiction, and other channels. We 
do not know what proportions of men and women are really capable of 
reaching any specified level of intellectual culture. We judge the values 
of most forms of esthetic culture largely in terms of our own standards — 
not with reference to their significance to persons endowed differently 
from ourselves. Every person is distinctly limited as to the time and 
energy he can give to cultural pursuits. Therefore he prizes those which 
he most affects, and tends to be contemptuous of those unlike his own to 
which others are devoted. 

A number of these problems will be analyzed later in chapters devoted 
to the objectives of literature, science, history, the fine arts, and the practi- 
cal arts in school education. Reference need here be made only to one or 
two of a general nature. 

Distinctions between common and special cultural interests are of 
great importance in shaping educational policies. "Common schools" are 
designed in large part to insure certain basic forms of culture (or neces- 



CULTURAL EDUCATION 427 

sary tools giving access to it) to all. In and through American schools 
we endeavor to assure to all general literacy, "self-service" or utilizers' 
arithmetic, appreciation of a variety of simple poems, stories, and 
essays, and a moderate understanding of geography and history. It 
has long been hoped that here also could be assured certain universal 
appreciations of nature, music, and plastic art as elements of common 
culture. 

The special cultural interests that are often found confined to a few 
persons in a given area may be primarily the outgrowth of superior general 
abilities, superior cultural surroundings, or of obscure interests that may 
or may not have been stimulated by education. Every neighborhood has 
persons who possess these special interests — amateur naturalists, ornitholo- 
gists, philosophers, stamp collectors, devotees of particular authors, crafts- 
men, musicians, and the like. Is it to be expected that many persons, or 
only a few, can share in these relatively exalted interests, even after 
much conscientious educational effort shall have been expended upon 
them? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bryce, J. Modern Democracies (Ch. y2, The Relation of Democracy to 
Letters and Arts). 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 7, Some Phases of Culture). 

Crawford, W. H. The American College (Ch. 3, The Place of the Newer 
Humanities in the College Curriculum), 

Davidson, T. The Education of Wage-Earners. 

Dewey, J. Democracy and Education (Ch. 8, Aims of Education). 

Eliot, C. W. Educational Reforms (Ch. 5, What Is a Liberal Educa- 
tion?). 

Hart, A. B. Social and Economic Forces in American History (Ch. 28, 
Intellectual Life). 

Henderson, C. H. Education and the Larger Life (Ch. 3, The Source of 
Power). 

Huxley, T. H. Essays — Science and Education (Ch. 4, A Liberal 
Education; and Where to Find It). 

Muller-Luyer, F. The History of Social Development (Ch. i, Culture 
and the Science of Culture; Ch. 2, Concerning the Origins of Culture). 

Pound, A. The Iron Man in Industry. 

Smith, W. R. Educational Sociology (Ch. 18, Cultural Aspects of Social- 
ized Education) , 



428 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Sparks, E, E. The Expansion of the American People (Ch. 34, The 
Increase of Well-Being Among the People). 

Spencer, H. Education (Ch. 2, Intellectual Education). 

Thorndike, a. Literature in a Changing Age (Ch. 2, The Reading 
Public). 

Turberville, a. S. Great Britain in the Latest Age (Ch. 14, The Intel- 
lectual Achievement of the Past Century). 

Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture (Ch. 12, Acts of Pleasure), 

Veblen, T. Theory of the Leisure Class (Ch. 14). 

Veblen, T. Theory of Business Enterprise (Ch. 9, The Cultural Inci- 
dence of the Machine Process). 



CHAPTER XXXII 

MISCELLANEOUS GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION 

ANALYZED 

THE inclusive classifications of educational objectives proposed in the 
foregoing chapters are not wholly acceptable to many educators and 
social economists. 

RECENT PROPOSALS 

The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, 

as previously noted, proposed seven main groups of all the objectives of 
education, of which three — physical education, vocational education, and 
education for citizenship — correspond substantially with categories sub- 
mitted in previous chapters. Their four others — education for family 
membership ethical education, education for leisure, and training in funda- 
mental processes — deserve consideration here. 

Education for family membership, as well as ethical education, desig- 
nate as categories groups of specific objectives of the utmost importance. 
But are they not both properly subdivisions of social education? The 
family is simply one of scores of social groups in which man naturally 
functions. During certain periods of his life it is the most important of 
all ; at other periods it is of less importance to him than some others. The 
family is, in a sense, basic to the social order ; but so also are governmental, 
economic, and religious groupings. 

The virtues and vices, too, of family groupings are, in modified forms 
or distinct species, the virtues and vices of other social groups. Defects 
of social relationship, signified by such words as untruthfulness, brutality, 
disloyalty, unchastity, dishonesty, and many others, are found in many 
other social groups besides the family. 

Then, too, why set up ethical education as something distinct from educa- 
tion for citizenship and family life? Ethical facts, principles, perhaps 
laws, underlie the cohesions and functionings of all social groups, from the 
family to the nation. In the comprehensive study of social relationships 
it may very well prove profitable at certain later stages to focus attention 
on those particular aspects treated by the subject of "ethics." It is to be 

429 



430 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

doubted, however, whether much of a field will be left to philosophical 
ethics when the science of social psychology shall have come into its own. 

Training in fundamental processes seems likewise an unsatisfactory 
separate category at present. Obviously, that which the school does in 
teaching pupils to read and write the vernacular belongs here. But does 
any other specific objective? Fundamental arithmetic plays a small part 
indeed, as shown by analysis, in most vocations and civic activities. It has 
little or no bearing on physical education. Specialized vocational mathe- 
matics, in numberless varieties, has its place, as will be shown. But 
"consumers' arithmetic" is clearly a division of cultural education. 

Are there "fundamental processes" in science, modern languages, history, 
geography, or art that can be analyzed and evaluated by being included in 
categories separate from the major groupings heretofore employed? Even 
the reading and the writing of English function so largely in the cultural 
education of the rank and file, and so little in other fields, that nothing 
seems sacrificed in including their elemental and unspecialized forms under 
that head. 

EDUCATION FOR LEISURE^ 

The Commission is on more substantial ground when it proposes as a 
general or major objective "education for leisure." We naturally set 
"leisure" in opposition to "working time" and "vocational pursuits." In 
curient discussion it should probably also be set apart from "rest" and 
"sleeping time." 

The trouble with this category is its inclusiveness and indeterminate- 
ness. Leisure time is, and under varying conditions should be, variously 
employed. Under some circumstances it should include large amounts of 
physical recreation, perhaps physical training. Under other conditions it 
is, and should be, given to any one of numberless forms of cultural or 
social recreation, diversion, or self-education. 

Current loose discussion of the purposes of "education for leisure" 
rarely deals in concrete facts and proposals. We know, in vague ways, that 
in modern civilized societies men, women, and children have substantial 
amounts of leisure. We know that some make very bad use of this leisure, 
and that most could make much better use of it than they now do. And 
we believe that it is practicable, through training, instruction, and other 
forms of education in youth, to realize some of the right forms of "leisure 

*See Bobbitt, F., The Curriculum (Part II, Education for the Leisure Occupa- 
tions). 



GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION ANALYZED 431 

behavior" desired in adult life. But beyond these generalizations and rather 
nebulous aspirations we have little to build on in fashioning programs of 
"education for leisure." 

The proper sociological approaches to the problem certainly involve the 
following stages : 

1. What are the varying social conditions to be considered in connection 
with the use of leisure? Separate consideration should be given to a 
variety of case-groups. For present purposes we may take these : 

Case-Group A. Artisan working men of native American stock and 
rearing, with equivalents of full elementary-school education, employed in 
factories and shops, ages thirty-five to fifty, having normal families, sepa- 
rate house homes, in typical Northern states urban environment. 

Case-Group B. Same, but ages twenty to twenty-five, unmarried, and 
usually living in boarding houses. 

Case-Group C. Women, ages twenty to twenty-five, teaching school, 
living away from home environment, and having had normal school or 
college education. 

Case-Group D. Wives of prosperous owning farmers, ages thirty to 
fifty, normal families. North Mississippi Valley states, living more than 
four miles from village center, slightly above the average in prosperity, 
representing at least sixth-grade schooling, derived from native stock. 

Case-Group E. Young men, ages seventeen to twenty-five, unmarried, 
farmers' sons, and still employed as wage-earners on parental or other 
farms, having at least elementary-school education, usually receiving good 
wages, and living not less than three miles from village centers. 

Case-Group F. Men, immigrant Italian, married, but wives are in 
Italy. Unskilled laborers on good wages in American cities under pro- 
hibition conditions. 

(Readers may diagnose other typical case-groups.) 

2. What are the seasons and quantities of leisure now available for 
these respective groups? We can conveniently assume that Groups A, B, 
and F work forty-eight hours a week throughout the year, with Sundays 
entirely free ; that Group C work about forty hours a week for forty-two 
weeks, with Saturday and Sunday free and also six or eight summer 
weeks ; that Group D work seventy hours a week for fifty or more weeks, 
but with possibilities of "bunching" four or five hours of leisure on Sun- 
days and one other day weekly; and that Group E work about sixty 
hours weekly, with most of Sundays and evenings free. 

Investigation would show us the usual amounts of non-working time 
now normally claimed for sleep, meals, worship, and fixed social duties 



432 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

among certain proportions of these various case-groups. By processes 
of subtraction it would be practicable to ascertain prevailing quantities of 
time and seasons now properly available as "leisure" for recreation, civic 
duties, sociability, and self-culture. Finally, we could ascertain uses now 
made of this time. 

3. The various practicable uses of leisure should next be considered 
concretely. Some kinds of workers probably have fairly imperative needs 
of physical recreation to offset, the specialized strains of their daily work. 
(Is this a probable need of any of the groups above, besides Group C?) 
Unmarried young workers have likewise fairly imperative needs of the 
social fellowship that permits and leads to courtship. A large proportion 
of manual workers have imperative needs of physical rest which may be 
accompanied by intellectual and social recreative activities of a moderately 
exacting kind. Many of the older men have fairly imperative interests 
in reading daily newspapers, which reading may, however, be the intel- 
lectual recreation accompanying physical rest. (In the case of business 
men it often becomes an accompanying activity to travel from and to 
work.) 

What are distinctly "superior" types, of leisure activities now pursued 
by a few from each of these case-groups ? This analysis will be our best 
"first" clue to what we have a right to expect from the next generation 
most nearly corresponding to these here studied, and the children to become 
which are, except in a few cases, now in our schools. 

A few individuals in each group have high-grade "self-culture" interests 
in reading, music, or exploration. A few have exceptionally good social 
interests in selecting companionship, volunteer social service, leadership in 
group recreations. A few utilize their leisure in laying the foundations of 
vocational advancement. 

These specialized tastes and powers reflect in some cases special hered- 
itary endowment, and hence clearly lie outside the range of reasonable 
expectations for large proportions of any group. But others represent 
fairly general possibilities, given sustaining ideals and early habituations. 
Even present educational experience indicates some possibilities. 

Given a school in which boys from twelve to eighteen years can form 
bands or orchestras under competent direction, from 10 to 30 per cent, 
may be so educated as to develop life interests in co5perative rendition 
of music. Variable proportions of boys and girls form literary or 
reading tastes and interests in schools which last through life. In 
English schools permanent naturalistic interests are found among small 
numbers. 



GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION ANALYZED 433 

The foregoing analysis confirms findings elsewhere in this book to the 
effect that all objectives of education which can properly be classified 
under the head "education for leisure" can more effectively be studied and 
evaluated in the relatively "natural" categories, as given in Chapters 
XXIX-XXXIL 

MENTAL DISCIPLINE ^ 

Laymen no less than educators like to conceive the larger purposes of 
education in terms of such abstract wholes as the "trained body/' the 
"rounded" or "well formed" character, the "trained mind," and the "good 
citizen." For purposes of current discussion these terms have their uses ; 
but they become obstacles to progress when assumptions are allowed to 
become traditional that some simple educational procedures will produce 
such manifold composites. 

The practical problems of producing in education those results, valuable 
to individuals and to society, which common sense everywhere recognizes 
and crudely assembles under the general term the "trained mind," are all 
very real. For it is obvious that, yielding ourselves for the moment to 
the opiatelike effects of unanalyzed general terms, we can not dispute 
the validity of those things that might be called the "trained mind," the 
"trained or disciplined body," the "trained (or severely formed) moral 
character," and the like. We similarly generalize when we speak of a 
"trained dog" or a "trained plant." 

The "trained mind," like the trained hand or the formed moral character, 
is something that men have always recognized in their social environment. 
But, notwithstanding the vague and often equivocal denoting words em- 
ployed, it is practically certain that experience with "trained minds" is 
always particular in its nature. Heredity, of course, gives variable basic 
qualities, perhaps very general in nature, just as it gives bigness and 
native strength of body, or wholesome balance of instincts and tempera- 
ment toward moral character. But the things we perceive and admire 
in those around us are certain specific powers of observation, of the Indian 
tracker or Eskimo seal-hunter no less than those of the proof-reader, bac- 
teriologist, or detective. Some of our associates tantalize us by their 
excellent memories for faces and names, others by their powers of quoting 
poetry "from memory." The historian is skilled in making one kind of 
deduction, the practical politician another, the farmer a third. 

" Consult A. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology (Vol. II, Ch. 12, The Influence 
of Improvement in One Mental Function for the Efficiency of Other Functions). 



434 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Some superficial readers (or auditors) seem now to reach the conclusion 
that "there is no such thing as mental discipline." But that is no less 
absurd than would be the conclusion that there is no such thing as "curing 
disease," or "training the body," or forming moral character. 

Recent .psychology has, indeed, thrown much doubt upon what might 
be called the "panacea" theory of mental discipline. When men claimed 
that the study of Latin "trained the power of observation," no matter to 
what concrete situations it might conveniently apply, the generalization 
did assume a uniform underlying power or "faculty." Hence activities 
that trained one species of the faculty necessarily strengthened, if they 
did not actually train, all others. We can think of primitive physicians 
who, recognizing in a variety of diseases the excessive heat characteristic 
of fevers, would find some quinine-like remedy that would mitigate one 
of these fevers. A natural inference would be that quinine was a "pana- 
cea" for all fevers. Now modern education, like modern medicine, tends 
toward disbelief in panaceas — whether they be Latin for "powers of obser- 
vation," plane geometry for "powers of reasoning," woodworking for 
"powers of exactness," poetry for "powers of imagination," or English 
grammar for logical thinking. True, there still persist many old fallacies. 
Even college professors in scientific fields still urge that secondary-school 
and junior-college courses in physics or chemistry or biology shall be 
designed largely to teach "scientific method." It is submitted that there 
may be as many unlike kinds of "scientific method" for education as there 
are fevers for medicine — and there are no panaceas or other "simples" 
even for the production of the "scientific spirit" ! 

It is, of course, practicable, by the use of proper direction and practice, 
to "train" human beings at all times in life, but especially in youth, in 
almost numberless directions to degrees of proficiency far beyond the 
limits ordinarily reached by what can well be called the "natural 
growth" processes. But, speaking in terms of analytically studied 
general experience, these forms of possible training are always relatively 
specific. 

We may, for example, speak of a "well developed" hand. Within 
limits set by heredity, every child, under the nourishing effects of sufficient 
good food, adequate rest, ample play, reasonable social stimulation, and 
normal freedom from contagion, attains in mature years to "well de- 
veloped" hands. 

But "trained" hands are something different. In daily life about us 
we observe numerous specific effects of such training. Most of us can 



GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION ANALYZED 435 

perform, after long and sometimes painful learning, those difficult opera- 
tions of fingers and arm which we call handwriting. Some of us can do 
wonderful things with our fingers on piano keys. A few can give one or 
more varieties of "curve spin" to a baseball. Self-reliant children, under 
proper tutelage, early learn the intricate coordinations involved in button- 
ing. The effective use of that ancient tool, the needle, requires exacting 
special forms of manual training. Men who make skilful use of hammers, 
shears, screwdrivers, rifles, knives, typewriters, razors, banknotes, paint- 
brushes, and the like, must acquire, through painstaking effort, the needed 
manual facilities. 

All of these varieties of training are, of course, "mental" at bottom, in 
spite of our free use of the convenient term "manual." No thoughtful 
person is now misled into thinking that those Punch-and-Judy puppets, the 
fingers, actuate themselves. The strings are pulled from behind, and chief 
credit for the "trained" performance must obviously be given to whoever 
or whatever it is that pulls the strings. 

Indeed, it may be that, in the case of various kinds of trained hands, 
we have to do with many performers, if the fancy may be pressed for 
illustrative purposes. We can imagine a man who is at once a skilled 
penman, a competent pianist, and an excellent billiardist. The same finger 
bones, tendons, and muscles are used in each type of activity, and our 
incomplete knowledge of what goes on to the rear of the scenes leads 
us to think of a single directing "mind" behind all these skills. But prac- 
tical experience informs us that when we have trained a youth to be a 
skilled penman we have not thereby trained him to be a pianist. As far 
as we know, the trained pianist, wishing to master billiards, must start 
on the same lowly plane as the rest of us. Perhaps the analogy of the 
phonograph may be as helpful as anything here. The "trained" horn, 
diaphragm, needle, and motor give us, now "Rock of Ages" and next 
"Tipperary" — according to the record inserted into the mechanism. But, 
after all, it is to the specific record that the distinctive effects are finally 
due, though an uninformed observer might ascribe them to the diaphragm 
or to the motor. 

Now, "observation," "reasoning," and even "imagination" are, in the 
last analysis of their numberless varieties, probably no more mental than 
are the varieties of manipulative activities referred to above. Their chan- 
nels of manifestation are different, of course, as are possibly many of their 
concomitant activities and their values — at least, to civilized men. But it 
may well be doubted whether they involve any very different pedagogy. 



436 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

For illustrative purposes we can take the qualities conveniently assembled 
under the word "observation." 

Nature has provided that man, like the animals, should develop, under 
the conditions of "natural" growth, a great variety of powers of observa- 
tion. Nature's original contributions here to various men are probably 
no more uniform than are her contributions to size and native strength 
of body, or natural flexibility of hand. But, within the limits set by in- 
heritance, man is capable of supplementing his "natural" powers of obser- 
vation by specific forms of training. Given definite direction and practice, 
he becomes what a man, untrained in these respects, thinks of as marvel- 
ously observant of animal tracks, of stars, of wild plants, of faces, of 
typographic errors, or of word endings. Extending the term to cover 
other senses than sight, he can become "extraordinarily" observant of 
musical discords, of tea flavors, of changes of temperature, of character- 
istic disease odors. 

Here again it is obvious that the real basic centers of training are not 
in the sense organs, but in the directing, registering, coordinating and 
interpreting agencies behind. The naive metaphysics of popular thought 
compels the postulation of some kind of single agency or faculty for this 
purpose. Even men who should interpret practical experience more 
analytically often become the victims of general terms here, especially 
when the very vagueness or ambiguity of these terms serve the purposes 
of obscuration or propaganda, as so often happens in politics, theology, 
and education. 

The perfectly obvious fact is that we can, with adequate control and 
effort, train human beings to be respectively very observant of stars or 
of leaves, of clothes or of faces, of flaws in cloth or of flaws in music. We 
can imagine a man who has gone far beyond the average in being observant 
of the niceties of typography, the colors of flowers, and the technique of 
pictures. But he will at times associate with a friend who is no less 
observant than he toward flowers, but who is uninterested and largely 
oblivious to distinctions in typography or in pictures. 

The exigencies of preserving life under competitive conditions induce 
men from childhood to let grow, as well as compel them by their own 
efforts to reinforce, certain specific powers of observation, according to 
environment and need. Hunter, fisherman, stock raiser, miner, burglar, 
shoeblack, lawyer, bookkeeper, locomotive engineer, primary-school teacher, 
aviator, translator, politician, poet, priest^each in his mature life has his 
special stock of trained powers of observation. No one seriously denies 



GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION ANALYZED 437 

that education can produce these, within the Hmits set by nature in each 
individual. All purposive education, in or out of school, has always been 
designed, among its other ends, to produce them. But mysticism here, as 
in religion, medicine, and science, has often made blind the leaders of those 
not yet able to see. 

But the exigencies of school routine or of educational theory, and 
especially in times of rapid evolution either of demands for more education 
or of new purposes, force men to claim certain kinds of magic virtue 
for specific, and often traditional, processes. Theologians, physi- 
cians, and statesmen have often found it expedient to resort to analogous 
devices. 

But now education, as was said above, follows medicine in discarding 
faiths in old panaceas. (We may be in for a period of sentimental beliefs 
in new nostrums, however. There appear no small amounts of "faith 
healing" in our schools to-day, especially in those areas of young childhood 
where sentiment is most readily enlisted.) One of the foremost educators 
of the closing decades of the last century could say, to generous applause, 
'Tt matters far less what we teach in high schools than how we teach it." 
Best informed opinion would to-day whole-heartedly insist : "Everything 
[for good education] depends upon what we teach [of value to the adult 
individual and to society], provided that in teaching it we use methods 
appropriate to the objectives thus determined." 

For the time being, therefore, faiths in panaceas of mental discipline 
are on the wane. "General training" from specific studies as an objective 
is viewed with deep suspicion. But we need not "pour out the baby with 
the bath." Mental disciplines, properly defined, remain as among the 
most important purposes for the schools — especially important because to 
so large an extent, in the forms demanded in modern life, they represent 
the things that only schools (as contrasted with such non-school educative 
agencies as the home, shop, party) can give. Educators should try assidu- 
ously to disentangle from our. contemporary vocational, civic, and cultural 
life those objectives of mental discipline of great significance to our civiliza- 
tion which can be made objectives of school education. 

We need, therefore, to set up no general category of mental training 
under which to include various specific objectives. These are properly to 
be placed under the general categories of "functioning" objectives easily 
recognizable in those with whom we associate — here the trained typist, there 
the trained botanist, elsewhere the trained reader of history. 



438 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Heck^ W. H. Mental Discipline and Educational Values (Ch. 7, A 
Standard of Educational Values). 

JuDD, C. H. Psychology of the High School Subjects (Ch. 17, Generalized 
Experience). 

Moore, E. C. What Is Education? (Ch. 3, The Doctrine of Mental Dis- 
cipline). 

ScoTT^ W. D. Increasing Human EMciency in Business. 

Whipple,, G. M. Manual of Mental and Physical Tests. 

(For references to "Education for Leisure" consult bibliograhies 

attached to chapters on : Cultural Education ; Literature ; Music ; and Prac- 
tical Arts.). 



PART IV 

THE SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE 
SCHOOL SUBJECTS 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EVERY adult person uses the "mother tongue" extensively. Many fairly 
well educated Americans also read a great deal in English. Some 
write frequent letters, and others love to "make speeches." In thinking 
of the "Americanization" of non-English-speaking immigrants, our first 
desire is that they shall learn to understand, then to speak, and finally to 
read, English. The conspicuous evidences of the failure of school educa- 
tion to reach, or to be effective with, English-speaking peoples is seen, first 
in illiteracy, and second in inability to write intelligibly. 

Here, to an extent found in hardly any other subject, the reader has 
many and varied prepossessions as to the social values of various kinds 
of proficiency in the apprehension and expression of English language. 
His eye is shocked by "bad" spelling and handwriting, and his ear by 
defective pronunciation and sentence structure. He is probably conscious 
of certain troublesome deficiencies in his own ability to write forcefully 
or to speak well on his feet. He is certain that, however much "liberty" 
he will grant immigrants, they have no right to ask that their children 
shall be exempted from the necessity of learning the "American" language. 
It is readily understood that "proficiency" in English is a highly composite 
thing — in fact, far too composite, to make one subject of it. We must 
consider separately objectives in spoken, and in written, English; in 
spelling, handwriting, and style ; in pronunciation, oral syntax, and speech- 
making. 

Above certain low school levels — perhaps the first five or six grades — 
the question of educational values that baffles us is, "How much is enough?" 
All must learn to write with a pen — but how legibly, how fast, how beauti- 
fully? All must learn to spell from memory — but shall it be one thousand, 
ten thousand, or one hundred thousand words? All must learn to speak 
grammatically up to some standard — but are the standards of the Gould 
Browns and Lindley Murrays to be taken for general use? Granted that 
all should acquire some powers of oral reading, when can we say, "it is 
good enough" ? 

If one man were just like another in needs, powers, and tastes, the 
above problems would not be very complex ; but men vary enormously. 
Certainly societies are enriched by the presence of able men and women 
in politics, education, and cultural societies, who can speak entertainingly 
and effectively from the platform. Is it desirable, or is it practicable, 
according to current approved standards, that large numbers should be 

441 



442 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

trained to do so? Five per cent, of all men? Fifty per cent? How 
important, after all, is "good" pronunciation, or better than we now have? 
How relatively important in comparison with other educational needs? 
Begin by studying these questions : 

1. When and how did you learn to speak English and to comprehend it 
when spoken? Assuming that you were reared in an English-speaking home, 
have you ever experienced "shortages" in your abilities either to understand 
the English of your close associates — that is, your well known "peers" — or 
to make them adequately understand yours? 

2. Endeavor to analyze your present masteries of spoken English — syntax, 
pronunciation, oral reading, enunciation, speech-making, full and fluent vo- 
cabulary, and others — in order to discover which of these you owe in con- 
siderable part to remembered training or instruction in school or college 
beyond what you were getting from example of associates. 

3. Analyze and provisionally rate as excellent, good, fair, poor, bad, your 
own English language powers under these heads : 

A. Oral expression: 

1. Pronunciation 

2. Enunciation 

3. Full vocabulary 

4. Syntax or correct structure 

5. Oral reading and recitation 

6. Oral composition or speechmaking 

B. Oral apprehension: 

1. Audition, correct and full hearing 

2. Ready comprehension of meanings in speech or oral reading 

C. Written expression: 

1. Handwriting 

2. Spelling 

3. Punctuation, capitalization, and correspondence technique 

4. Written syntax or structure 

5. Vocabulary in writing 

6. Style and other rhetorical qualities in composition 

D. Apprehension of written English: 

1. Silent reading, mechanics 

2. Silent reading, ready comprehension 

4. With reference to which of the foregoing does it seem to you that most 
"shortages" exist among the American people? 

By what standards do you judge these to be "shortages"? 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 443 

What are some "prevailing" defects of English in certain classes with which 
you have had experience — farmers, shop girls (under twenty-one years of 
age), miners, society women, and the like? 

5. Does it seem to you that the social solidarity or civic cohesion of the 
American people could be substantially improved by : 

1. Eradication of such dialect differences as are now noticeable? 

2. General improvement of syntax in speech? 

3. General improvement in pronunciation? 

4. Elimination of slang? 

5. Improvement in silent reading? 

6. Universal training of all high-school pupils in speech-making? 

6. Does it seem important to you that large numbers of Americans should 
be trained to read aloud effectively? 

7. Would it seem advisable in large city schools not to require oral reading 
after the third grade, provided: 

a. All pupils in all grades were given systematic drill toward speedy and 
accurate silent reading; 

b. All pupils were first tested, and then the deficient ones drilled, on quick 
recognition and correct pronunciation of all new words encountered in reading 
and studies; 

c. Special classes in oral reading and recitation under well qualified teach- 
ers were made available for pupils whose parents desired it, attendance condi- 
tioned on the ability of the members to show definite and steady improvement 
in powers, with possibilities of new trials each year; 

d. Vocational schools for the few vocations requiring special powers of oral 
reading (the ministery, elementary- and secondary-school teaching, drama, 
etc.) provided needed specific training? 

8. Do these considerations seem valid : 

a. That the arts of oral reading are but slightly practised, or needed, or 
desired among adults to-day; 

b. That proficiency in silent reading is universally needed, and, where pos- 
sessed, is generally practised; 

c. That, from the standpoint of social values, proficiency in oral reading 
should be classified as a cultural accomplishment like proficiency in playing 
the violin, amateur dramatics, singing, cultural modern language, etc., toward 
which special training should be given at public expense only when the in- 
dividual or his guardians desire it, and good returns follow public outlay on 
such training; 

d. That oral reading as it is now taught, or has been taught in the past, 
is a wasteful and ineffective means of teaching (i) silent reading, (2) English 
pronunciation, (3) or appreciation of literature? 



444 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

The objectives of nearly all the English-language studies should be 
defined in terms of powers of continued use. The primary purposes con- 
trolling in the teaching of handwriting, pronunciation, spelHng, letter- 
writing, silent reading, and speech-making are the formation of persisting 
and, if practicable, steadily improving powers of using, with as little con- 
scious efifort as practicable, the various language arts designated by those 
terms. Hence, in practically all their phases these studies in schools are 
of the "projective," rather than "developmental," order. 

The study of English language in schools gives rise to a great number 
of specific objectives. No adequate analysis of these as yet exists. For 
convenience they may be classified under three heads : (a) spoken or oral 
English; (b) written English; (c) apprehended (heard or read) English. 
Each one of these categories has its own variety of special techniques. 

Unfortunately, teachers, as well as the books and articles written to 
guide them, leave unsolved many problems of objective. Schools have 
historically confined themselves chiefly to the teaching of reading, and the 
various branches of written English. Obviously, such techniques as hand- 
writing, spelling, and some punctuation can easily be taught in schools. 

Recently much attention has been given to the defining of objectives in 
the field of oral or spoken English. The ancient subject of grammar was 
long taught for the purpose of training in English structure or syntax, both 
oral and written. Undoubtedly, the most intelligent students profited from 
such studies, but it is not in evidence that grammar as taught to the rank 
and file of learners has contributed in important measure to structural cor- 
rectness of speech. 

Other phases of oral English still possess very imperfectly defined 
objectives. Not all students give adequately concrete consideration to the 
fundamental fact that oral English is in many respects learned as ver- 
nacular, both before pupils enter school, and also to a large extent parallel 
with their school attendance. One result of this dualism of agencies is 
that as yet we possess no adequate standards of attainment to guide us in 
such fields as pronunciation, enunciation, structure of conversational 
English, vocabulary, and voice quality. Naturally, then, these objectives 
are either ignored in a great many schools, or else are given incidental 
and desultory consideration. 

One effect of correlation has been a serious confusing of definite ob- 
jectives in English. Many teachers have, in recent years, come to feel that 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 445 

English language offers a peculiarly fertile field for the application of the 
principle of correlation. In all branches learners must obviously express 
themselves, orally or in writing, through English. They must comprehend 
a large part of that which they learn from the printed page or from 
lectures. It has seemed logical and economical that the processes of train- 
ing in English should be in some way combined with processes of instruct- 
ing in science, history, practical arts, and the like. 

It is too early yet to say to what extent the processes of correlation can 
be economically employed in the simultaneous achievement of two or more 
distinctive objectives. Obviously, we shall have no measure of success 
here until the various objectives to be realized are clearly defined. Where 
this is not done, it becomes inevitable that teachers mistake the shadow for 
the substance in many of the subjects that they undertake to teach. 

For example, English pronunciation should undoubtedly constitute an 
objective in the various grades in different types of schools. English 
pronunciation is, of course, learned in part through the vernacular as 
acquired at home. Nevertheless defects, ranging from those of relatively 
little importance to those of greater moment, remain to be corrected in 
the speech of all young people. Since, now, nearly every variety of school 
work involves a large measure of oral expression, it must inevitably occur 
to teachers that the teaching of pronunciation can be closely correlated with 
the teaching of other subjects. 

Unfortunately, the plan works no better here than in the correlation 
of grammar or spelling with other subjects. The fact is that the defects 
of pronunciation are nearly always of a special and individual character, 
and if they are to be corrected, prolonged and painstaking drill is essential. 

Time was when it was thought that correct grammatical structure, 
pronunciation, spelling, and even handwriting, could be taught in correla- 
tion with other subjects. Specific proposals to this end largely ignore the 
necessities of concentrated drill and focusing of attention, if defects in 
existing powers are to be corrected, or if new powers are to be taught. 

The objectives of English-language study probably should, wherever 
practicable, be defined and formulated in terms of their most general social 
functionings. It has long been common to designate as "written compo- 
sition" certain well known forms of instruction and training. But in actual 
life men do not write "compositions." Large numbers write friendly 
letters ; a somewhat smaller number have occasion to write business 
letters ; a few write editorials, articles, and formal epistolary communica- 
tions ; and a few professionals write drama and poetry. It is almost 
always a mistake to set up objectives, even if only to the extent of employ- 



446 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ing denominating terms, that are not functional imoutside life. Why should 
educators not drop the term "composition," and substitute courses in: 
friendly letter-writing; business letters; essays and editorials for publica- 
tion; written examinations; travel descriptions; short-story writing; and 
the like? 

Even more ill advised is the recent tendency to use the term "oral com- 
position" in one or more artificial ways. In actual life, again, men and 
women to not indulge in "oral composition." They converse informally 
with equals, or they converse more formally with individuals in business 
and society. They make sustained speeches, talks, or addresses, with more 
or less of preparation, to listening groups. They also read aloud, or recite, 
to individuals, or to audiences. Each of these situations imposes its 
peculiar strains, and for each special training is always possible. But such 
training should have well defined and evaluated objectives; otherwise it 
becomes simply the empty threshing over of old straw. 

Similar considerations apply in the case of grammar. Only a few people 
employ in their daily duties or diversions technical knowledge and distinc- 
tions consciously derived from the study of grammar. But nearly all 
persons require more or less training toward the elimination of habitual 
inaccuracies or inelegancies in their ordinary speech and writing. These 
constitute, or should constitute, definite objectives for school education. 

There can be no objection, of course, to the extensive and thorough 
study of technical English grammar by able-minded persons who have 
time, means, and inclination to that end. Such study should doubtless be 
recommended or prescribed to those persons who desire to enter college, 
or, even apart from that, to prepare themselves for teaching, writing, or 
other vocations that require high standards of performance in the use of 
English language. 

SPECIAL OBJECTIVES 

It is unnecessary to ask, "Why teach reading, spelling, or writing?" Our 
lower schools, as they have evolved in recent centuries, were founded and 
extended primarily to teach these language arts. But it is still very neces- 
sary to ask such questions as these : "How much spelling is enough ?" 
"What are optimum degrees of excellence in legibility, speed, and beauty 
of handwriting?" "Are persisting abilities in oral readings of general 
importance, as contrasted with precise and deeply fixed powers of silent 
reading ?" 

In other directions customary valuations are less certain. Hence the 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 447 

way is still open to the faddist and exploiter of hobbies. Is it important 
that all or some children be taught what is now called "oral composition" ? 
For whom is grammar an important study? Pronunciation is learned 
largely by imitation ; but if the "exemplars" are bad, should the schools 
give special training in this subject? 

READING 

The history of education tells how certain enlightened ones among our 
forefathers argued that all children should be taught at public expense to 
read. Undoubtedly they had to meet opposing arguments. Why should 
children be taught to read? Could not men be just as well off without 
reading? Would not illiterates be as devout, as obedient to law, as indus- 
trious, as kind to their families, as healthy of body? 

The proponents, as we know, sought to prove, sometimes on religious, 
and sometimes on political grounds, that general literacy was a good thing. 
Protestants, especially of the more dissenting types, desired that each 
adult should read the Scriptures for himself. Supporters of democratic 
government wanted voters who could read newspapers and books. Pos- 
sibly some others felt that literate farmers or carpenters or seamen could 
be better workers in their own interests than their illiterate compeers. 

Without using some of the dogmas and principles now familiar to 
students of social economy, these pioneers were, nevertheless, thinking 
largely in terms of the collective or common good. They were concerned 
to produce for God's kingdom the largest number of God-fearing, Satan- 
hating men and women. They wanted worthy, self-directing citizens for 
colony and commonwealth. The aims of the schooling they proposed were 
essentially social. They justified it by the light of such sociological insight 
and motive as they then possessed. 

As regards vernacular reading, we can only build somewhat higher or 
more discreetly on the foundations of education values which they laid 
centuries ago. We do not ask, "Is it important to teach children to read ?" 
We can, of course, set ourselves problems of a more specific nature, solu- 
tions to which will depend, sometimes on more exact knowledge of aim, 
sometimes on more exact knowledge of method, than we now possess. 
Is it important that children beyond the third grade should be required 
to continue drill in oral reading? Is it worth while to try to teach Italian 
women, coming to America at forty or more years of age, to read English? 
Is it important that fairly strenuous drill in silent reading be required 
of children, not yet ranking high in that art, between ages ten and fifteen? 



448 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Is it important that girls in normal schools should be given much more 
drill than is now the case in clear and sweet oral reading? Is it important 
for cultural or other reasons that oral reading and speaking under specially 
qualified teachers, be provided as a free elective in junior and senior high 
schools for pupils desiring advanced and prolonged training therein ? 

Oral reading has always received much attention in elementary schools. 
Outside of a bare half-dozen professions, however, oral reading seems to 
play a diminishing role, or, among a large part of the population, a 
negligible role in modern communication. Why, then, should our schools 
continue to teach the technique of oral reading throughout the grades, or 
even in the first six grades ? 

The reasons commonly urged are these: (a) even if oral reading is 
not now widely employed in the home or in social gatherings elsewhere, 
nevertheless it should be so, and by continuous efforts in teaching oral 
reading in schools we may hope to revive the lost art and general interest 
in it; (&) oral reading is an essential means of teaching silent reading at 
all stages; (c) oral reading is necessary to the teaching of pronunciation, 
enunciation, and also vocabulary building; (d) oral reading is a valuable 
means of getting the full content of poetry, drama, and some other types 
of literary products. 

All of these contentions need careful examination. As regards the first, 
it must be remembered that social groups are rarely homogeneous intellec- 
tually to an extent that makes the same content, read carefully, appreciated 
by all. The family group is, of course, one of the least homogeneous in 
this respect. In the modern cultured home, containing, for example, the 
father, mother, an eighteen-year-old daughter, a fifteen-year-old son, and 
twelve-year-old daughter, it will frequently be found that in the evening 
or other time of leisure each member of the family is busily engaged in 
the reading of books or magazines that would have very little interest for 
any of the other members. The father may be reading the evening 
newspaper, the mother the Ladies^ Home Journal, the older daughter a 
recent novel, the boy a book on scouting, and the younger girl St. Nicholas. 
Each reader is brought by his reading into membership with a vast group 
of those having similar interests. But the interests represented in the home 
are very diverse. The same situation often prevails in other social groups — 
farmers in a Grange, women in a club group, and even boys and girls in 
the intermediate grades in the same school. 

It is probable that oral reading is an essential means of teaching silent 
reading in the first two, possibly three, grades. Beyond this it may not 
only well be doubted whether it is a good means,— the problem shpuld be 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 449 

raised as to whether in many cases it is not a distinctly bad means, that is, a 
means that produces more bad than good results. 

The same objections apply to the third contention. In the early grades 
oral reading may be a profitable means of teaching various other kinds of 
oral expression. Later on, however, our very reliance upon it as a means 
may seriously interfere with the development of more pointed and effective 
processes. 

Large amounts of reading doubtless contribute to vocabulary building; 
but is there any evidence that silent reading is not far more effective for 
this purpose than oral reading? 

The contention that oral reading is essential to bring out the quality 
of poetic or dramatic composition certainly has validity; but, after all, is 
not appreciation in these^ cases gained by the auditor rather than by the 
reader ? It is, apparently, not yet agreed as to how far poetic composition 
is at best adapted to effective esthetic apprehension through silent reading. 
At present only a limited number of persons seem to confess to an enjoy- 
ment of poetry as thus presented. It may well be that the dynamic vitality 
of prose as a medium for story and narration at the present time, in 
contrast to the vitality of poetic composition, is largely due to the difficulties 
of apprehending poetry through silent reading. 

Silent reading constitutes now almost the universal form of apprehen- 
sion of printed matter among civilized peoples. Educators have probably 
assumed until recently that training in oral reading automatically develops 
powers of silent reading. Few teachers would even now admit that persons 
who are fairly acceptable oral readers, may nevertheless be seriously de- 
ficient in powers of effective silent reading. Nevertheless there are good 
grounds for believing that just this is the case with many pupils. Doubtless 
a close correlation will be found to exist between good oral reading and 
good silent reading; but for the great majority it seems now probable 
that time and energy could far better be invested in training in silent 
reading than in oral reading. Both standards and methods of training in 
silent reading are as yet obscure; but rapid progress is being made, and 
within the next few years we may hope to find standards of achievement 
defined which will readily suggest effective methods. In the meantime, 
all teachers can well afford to give relatively abundant time to training in 
silent reading by all methods now available. It is important to realize that 
there exist many varieties of silent reading abilities, taking account of all 
that we mean by accurate, full, and ready apprehension. The differences 
in English as employed in an elementary and in a more advanced textbook 
in geography often impose upon the pupil coming to the latter new and 



450 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

severe handicaps. This is especially true in the transition from elementary- 
school to high-school texts, and in beginning the use of books of reference. 
Wise teachers give special training in the silent reading of each new text 
as it is approached, and before the pupil is seriously expected to make 
much progress while studying it without special preparation. 

WRITTEN ENGLISH 

The objectives of legibility of handwriting in our elementary and 
secondary schools are fairly well defined, but standards of optimum 
achievement are not. We can readily take for granted that all but very 
defective children can be taught to write. Subjective standards of 
legibility, as well as of speed, all educated persons now possess. These 
are now in process of being objectified,, but we still lack adequate criteria 
for determining the amount of time and effort that should be expended 
toward realizing these standards on the part of varying case-groups. Here, 
as in some other directions, it is highly desirable that the normal perform- 
ances of men of more than average success in various lines of effort should 
be examined. Furthermore, it is of the utmost importance that vocational 
requirements should be sharply separated from those for other purposes. 
Formerly, the possibility that the learner might follow some vocation in 
which superior standards of handwriting are exacted prevented anything 
like a reasonable recognition of what should constitute optimum standards 
in the schools. Insufficient attention has yet been given to the differentia- 
tion of standards of speed and those of legibility. It is obvious, of course, 
that attainments in this direction are considerably in conflict with each 
other. 

When should the several objectives of handwriting be realized to an 
optimum degree? It is certainly impossible to attain them all in the first 
two or three grades. Knowledge of desirable form, and a reasonable 
facility in its attainment, can be had by the end of the third grade. Speed, 
and skill of performance of certain advanced types, must come later. It 
is possible that the objectives of handwriting, as finally defined, will be 
found best capable of realization through a series of three or more "stages" 
or areas in training, located respectively in the first three grades, in grades 
7 and 8, in grades ii and 12, and in special vocational schools. 

Spelling — should it be taught? As a means of written communication, 
and that only? To whom? Everybody, in greater or less degree? How 
much? These problems seem to have been obscure ones for us until 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 451 

recently. Now we realize the absurdity of trying to have all children 
achieve memorized mastery over the spelling of fifteen or twenty thousand 
words, two thirds of which they probably will never use in their own 
written communications. We are working toward approxin^ate standards 
for persons of modal needs. We may also soon expect some standardiza- 
tion of the needs of persons like stenographers, teachers, and others whose 
vocations call for spelling in extra quantities, or of exceptional kinds. 

When teach spelling? Here are still some unsolved problems. Cer- 
tainly the correct spelling of words should be taught not later than the 
time when the learner will normally desire to use these in written com- 
munication. Should the special spelling needed by stenographers be taught 
before the learner enters the vocational school itself ? Probably not. Each 
type of vocational school — of medicine, business administration, chemical 
engineering, department-store salesmanship — should teach the spelling re- 
quired in the writing actually employed in the pursuit of the vocation. 

What spelling should be left to dictionary, gazetteer, and other reference 
books ? For a certain short period in their schooling, high-school students 
will be called to read, and perhaps to write about, Thothmes, Psammetichus, 
Cyaxares, Eurymedon, Mithridates, and Illyricum. In their eighth-grade 
work they will work with such names as Caribbean, Tierra del Fuego, 
Chapultepec, and Natchitoches. Should they learn the spelling of these 
"for all time"? Or should it rather be assumed that on the very rare 
occasions when in adult life they will find it necessary to write these names 
they will at once have recourse to some book of reference? 

Written composition — should it be taught in schools? What is the 
significance of the term as applied to the practical performances required 
in adult life? Why not substitute for it several terms denoting more 
specifically the kinds of written performances that men and women 
engage in? 

For example, it is reasonable to expect, not only children, but all literate 
adults to write friendly, colloquial letters. The quality of the formal 
English in such letters, as well as the literary style, is capable of varying 
enormously. There is no reason why, from the first grade to college, we 
should not recur again and again to this as one fundamental objective of 
written intercourse — the writing of letters of friendship, in style and 
quality suited to sender and recipient. 

Another style of epistolary composition in which constantly increasing 
numbers now engage is that of business correspondence. Practical prin- 
ciples of business correspondence differ greatly from those of friendly 



452 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

correspondence. Here, too, it is possible, very early in the grades to 
teach one large type of written expression, with all its various techniques 
as well as stylistic qualities. 

A third type of letter might well be recognized in upper grades of high 
schools, and some training given in its composition. This is the formal 
letter dealing with other than specifically business topics. It possesses at 
its best a technique of its own. 

Beyond this, is there any reason why the upper schools should not 
offer, at least as electives, various specific forms of written composition — 
editorials, short stories, narrative accounts, poetical composition, dramatic 
composition^ essays, etc. ? 

In other words, let us base our objectives in the schools upon the require- 
ments of youthful and adult life at its best, as exhibited in practice all 
about us. These objectives can be made concrete enough to appeal to the 
intelligent understanding of pupils to whom the word "composition" in 
the abstract is a bore. 

The place of grammar has long been a matter of dispute among educa- 
tors, and also among some laymen. Confusion arises from the absence 
of explicit definitions, as well as from the substitution of assump- 
tion for evidence relative to the effects of specific instruction and 
training. 

Few men whose opinions are valuable would dispute the importance of 
training children and youths in all grades toward habits and ideals of correct 
structure, as well as of other accuracies, in the oral and written use of the 
vernacular. Few, again, will oppose granting, at least to high-school pupils, 
the privilege of electing the study of technical grammar. 

But is technical grammar, as commonly taught, an effective means 
toward correct usage? Here the disputed issues are many. 

Typewriting as a substitute for handwriting. It is often urged that 
schools need concern themselves to a lessening degree with handwriting, 
owing to the rapid spread of typewriting. This view neglects certain 
essential social considerations. A large part of the handwriting of nearly 
all individuals is incidental to travel, social correspondence, business activ- 
ities, and the like. Under these conditions the substitution of typewriting 
is now impracticable, and apparently will long continue to be so. 

A SECOND LANGUAGE 

The belief prevails widely, especially among our intellectual leaders, that 
the possession of a second language reacts in important measure on the 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 453 

ability to employ English. This belief doubtless has some validity ; never- 
theless its various implications need careful examination. 

Men who make of writing a profession — journalists, statesmen, preach- 
ers, and some others — obviously have need of wide ranges of vocabulary, 
and of exceptionally fine discriminations of the factors that constitute 
style. Several sources of these powers exist. The study of a foreign 
language and its literature may be only one. The modern world aspires to 
concrete and original thinking, and very frequently these are not greatly 
aided by the study of foreign languages. 

The use of the biographies of men of genius in this connection is of 
doubtful value. Nevertheless we ought not to fail, in discussing these 
problems, to recognize the fact that many of the most original of Greek 
writers were probably no more bilingual than have been Whitman, Lincoln, 
Mark Twain, Kipling, and London. A large proportion of the men who 
have contributed to American literature were not only educated in the 
classics, but also somewhat in one or more modern language. These might 
be regarded as evidence in favor of the contention that foreign-language 
study is essential to good English writing. Other explanations, however, 
are possible. The only education available to men of some social position 
and literary interests in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth cen- 
turies in the United States was that received by such men as Hamilton, 
Hawthorne, and Lowell. Writers of ability could have come from hardly 
any other schools than the classical, since none other existed. Our own 
history probably proves that too great devotion to foreign languages and 
literatures very materially impairs the originality and artistic effectiveness 
of some writers. Such devotion may be justified in a country's youthful 
era, when imitation and social acculturation are essential. They may, on 
the other hand, prove very serious handicaps in eras when a people should, 
in artistic matters, stand on its own feet and express its own ideals.'- 

PROBLEMS OF "PRODUCTION" VS. "UPKEEP" IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE-POWERS 

The function of schools in several forms of oral English are comple- 
mentary, supplementary, residual, or corrective to those outside agencies 
which contribute to developmental or imitative education. Pronunciation, 
every-day vocabulary, interpretations, structure, and the like, thus come to 
the school more or less ready made, perhaps badly made. 

Such special powers as printed word recognition, spelling, handAvriting, 
technique of epistolary communications, and others, may be learned for 

^ The interested reader will find Nietzsche, Essay on History, suggestive here. 



454 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the first time in schools. These arts employ, of course, a language content 
already largely learned, but now subject to some new conditions of expres- 
sion or apprehension. 

In all grades, all subjects involve more or less extensive use of language, 
apprehended and expressed, oral and written. In high schools and above, 
where teaching service is departmentalized, all teachers must have their 
pupils use English language, but, according to current statement, not all 
teach the subject. There arise many problems of distribution of responsi- 
bility, and of confused methods, largely because objectives are not well 
defined. 

Language powers of all kinds need use to preserve them — like all other 
delicate and complex habits and skills. For the conservation of the finest, it 
would seem that use with conscious effort to preserve the fineness is essen- 
tial. The more common vernacular powers are used so constantly that they 
form deep-rooted, fully automatic habits. An energetic girl of twelve to 
fifteen years of age may utter from ten to fifteen thousand words in a 
day. The less used powers, especially those newly taught by schools, tend 
easily to "rust from disuse," to atrophy. 

Objectives of English-language studies of the projective order ob- 
viously require careful differentiation into those of "production" — of new 
powers, as habits or knowledge or ideals — and "upkeep." In a high school, 
is it the primary responsibility of the "English" teacher to teach new 
things in that language — structure, pronunciation, art quality, oral com- 
position, punctuation, handwriting, and the rest ; or is it to "exercise" and 
"upkeep" powers already acquired provisionally, but not yet firmly 
possessed ? 

Have teachers of algebra and chemistry any responsibilities for "teach- 
ing English"? If so, what, specifically? If a high-school teacher meets 
her pupils but five hours a week, whilst they are under the direct influence 
of other teachers for fifteen hours a week, and under the influence of their 
homes and associates for perhaps sixty other hours, what are her pos- 
sibihties of "upkeeping" new and difficult language acquisitions? The 
situation is even worse when stated in terms of year hours. For more 
than four thousand year hours language apprehension or expression con- 
tinues — and of these the English teacher may control from i8o to 360 at 
the outside. Other teachers "control" perhaps 500 to 800. The home, 
street, club, and other agencies control the rest. 

The following suggestions as to differentiations of responsibility are 
submitted : 

I. It is the function of the elementary teacher in "English language" 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 455 

classes and of departmental teachers of English later : (a) to instruct and 
train learners toward powers not already acquired in writing, reading and 
speaking English; (b) to acquaint them definitely with the specific defects 
and shortages in powers already partially acquired; (c) to develop means 
of cultivating appreciations and ideals of, and interests in, good EngHsh 
language according to standards normal to the ages and circumstances of 
learners being considered; and (d) to penalize and otherwise render 
"annoying" deficiencies in language permitted to remain, or to grow from 
contact with other agencies. 

2. It is the function of the elementary teacher in non-English subjects, 
and of non-English departmental teachers, to train pupils in the special 
techniques of English expression and apprehension in their subjects — 
spelling of historical and geographical names, penmanship for bookkeeping, 
composition of mathematics papers, arrangement of laboratory notes, oral 
usage in geometrical demonstrations, enunciation in song, speech-making 
in civics, structure in foreign-language translation, etc. It is also their 
responsibility to hold learners up to agreed upon standards already acquired 
in general expression, written or oral, these, presumably, having been 
defined by English teachers. 

3. It is not the province of non-English teachers to instruct or train 
learners in new powers of English expression 

TENTATIVE FINDINGS 

I . Educational and public opinion are agreed as to the importance of 
English-language studies in nearly all kinds of schools. But much vague- 
ness persists as to many specific objectives — in both their qualitative and 
their quantitative aspects. It is submitted : 

1. That the purposes or aims of spelling and handwriting are sufficiently 
well defined qualitatively, and that much progress has been made toward 
establishing optimum quantitative standards (amounts or degrees of excel- 
lence) for different age levels, ability levels, and social needs. 

2. That the social purposes or values of oral reading beyond the first 
two or three grades are largely lacking in formulation. 

3. That the widespread social need of efficiency in silent reading is 
now perceived by educators, but that no agreement exists yet as to the 
efficacy, for various ability levels, of by-education (at successive age levels 
and for various home environments) in this field; nor is there agreement 
as to efiFective methods of specific training, either toward thoroughness 
of apprehension, or toward speed of apprehension. 



456 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

4. That the objectives of "written composition" which are actually now 
functional or needed among various social groups are very largely lacking 
in definition and evaluation. 

5. That the objectives of "correct oral usage" desirable and practicable 
for various types of schools are still very nebulous, notwithstanding the 
ease with which moderately well educated men learn to "appreciate" short- 
ages in others. 

6. That neither the desirable nor the practicable objectives of English 
grammar as a logically organized "study" have yet been established. 

7. That historic beliefs as to the reinforcing, or otherwise contributory, 
values of foreign-language study toward spoken or written English are as 
yet quite without demonstrated validity. 

8. That, in a vague way, contemporary educational practice recognizes 
certain specific social needs for better results in such departments of 
English language as pronunciation, enunciation, range and flexibility of 
spoken vocabulary, oral composition (sustained discourse to audience), and 
some others; but that it has thus far evolved few clear-cut objectives, and 
almost no satisfactory means toward meeting these needs. 

9. That the historic intimate correlation of English literature with 
English-language studies (eloquently implied by the still customary use of 
the single word "English" to cover both) has been a source of confusion 
and weakness to the objectives and methods of both, and will not be toler- 
ated, once the objectives of each are clearly defined. 

10. That the final objectives of nearly all forms of English-language 
instruction and training in schools are necessarily of the alpha or projective 
order, although early stages of a beta or developmental order in oral 
reading, letter-writing, and speech-making may often be defined as a 
means of motivation and pedagogic expediency. 

11. That where specific objectives of training can be defined — in punctua- 
tion, spelling, pronunciation, and the like, — compact and direct drills are 
often the most eiifective means of education; but that these means are apt 
to be without efficacy where objectives not reducible to specific form — 
style in written expression, feeling in speech-making or oral reading — are 
sought, 

II. Among the theories and practices involving the objectives of 
English-language studies now discussed by progressive educators it is 
submitted that these probably have large degrees of validity : 

I. That of subordinating, if not dispensing with, oral reading as a gen- 
erally required subject after the third grade. 



THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STUDIES 457 

2. That of offering as an elective in grades 4 to 12, where resources 
permit, oral reading toward superior artistic, cultural, or vocational pro- 
ficiency to persons of especially good ability or promise in this field (thus 
paralleling provision of special forms of music, drawing, and the like, as 
"accomplishments" — possibly "education for leisure"). 

3. That of giving some systematic training to all, and perhaps much to 
deficients, in silent reading, both in early grades, and subsequently as 
specific disabilities are revealed — for example, readily to read new text- 
books. Eventually optimum "resultant" standards of thoroughness of 
apprehension, and speed of apprehension, for varying grades of potentiality 
or need, may be expected to be devised. 

4. That of defining functional projective objectives for required general 
courses in written composition for the first ten grades primarily in direct 
and concrete reference to those forms of written communication on the 
expressive side which are the only concern of perhaps 90 per cent, of all 
adults — namely, letters; and these of two principal species, (a) friendly 
or social, and (b) business. These general objectives may be supplemented 
by special objectives founded on requirements for class work, laboratory 
write-ups, and examinations, devised with reference to clearly perceived 
needs. 

5. That of offering for election in grades higher than the sixth one or. 
more courses in special or advanced English composition for persons of 
exceptional ability or ambition, and designed especially for pre-vocational 
or other preparatory purposes, looking either to cultural or vocational 
objectives. 

6. That of defining concrete objectives of oral language structure (his- 
torically known as grammar, language lessons, and the like) in direct refer- 
ence to shortages and defects shown by the adults of the community ; and 
of discovering means and methods for their correction that shall employ 
little, or preferably none, of the technical terminology of English grammar, 

7. That of offering for election in junior or senior high school one or 
more courses in English grammar and rhetoric, designed to give able- 
minded pupils scientific knowledge of the structure and functions of the 
various factors of the English language. 

8. That of offering as an elective somewhere in the higher six grades a 
half-year's course in word analysis, with especial reference to word origins 
from Greek, Latin, French, Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, and miscellane- 
ous other languages. 

9. That of offering as an elective in the upper six grades one or more 
courses in oral composition (but under more "functional" designation) de- 



4S8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

fined as simultaneous composition and systematic delivery to audience, and 
planned to include various forms of debating, parliamentary practice, story- 
telling, and the like, continuance in such courses to be conditioned on sub- 
stantial present and prospective achievement. 

10. That of instituting research for the purpose of discovering to vi^hat 
extent there exists a need, possibly general, more probably special to certain 
cases, for very definite and sustained training in : pronunciation, enuncia- 
tion, and vocabulary building. ■ 

11. That of employing English literature as a corpus vile for purposes 
of dissection and practice in language vi^ork where necessary, but under no 
misapprehension that appreciations of, or enduring interests in, English 
literature are thereby being taught. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Carpenter, Baker, and Scott. The Teaching of English in the Elemen- 
tary and Secondary School (Ch. 2, English in'Elementary Education; 
Ch. 3, English in Secondary Education). 

Chubb, P. The Teaching of English (Ch. 5-7, Learning to Read; Ch. 8, 
Composition, Oral and Written, in the Primary Grades; Ch. 11, 12, 
Language Work in the Grammar Grades; Ch. 17-19, English-Lan- 
guage Studies in High Schools). 

Corson, H. The Voice and Spiritual Education. 

Hinsdale, B. A. Teaching the Language Arts. 

Klapper^ P, The Teaching of English (Ch. i. Introductory Considera- 
tion). 

Thomas^ C. S. The Teaching of English (Ch. i, Basic Aims and Values 
of English ; Ch. 3, The Relation of Grammar and Composition to Liter- 
ature; Ch. 6, Cooperation with Other Departments; Ch. 14, Adjusting 
High-School English Courses to Vocational Pupils). 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
THE MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

NOT many decades ago America was still essentially a nation of fron- 
tiersmen ; it was politically isolated ; and its commercial and cultural 
connections with other than English-speaking peoples were not important. 
The recent great changes in our international position are commonplace to 
all well read persons. 

What should these facts mean in reference to the study of foreign lan- 
guages in our schools? Do we need them more or do we need them less 
than in our national youth? Few contemporary educational problems are 
more obviously in need of solution from the larger sociological viewpoint. 
The reader's personal prepossessions, as shown in answers to these ques- 
tions, will serve to bring into relief a number of vital problems : 

1. Does it seem important to you, from the standpoint of our friendly com- 
mercial, political, and cultural relations with other peoples, that substantial 
numbers of Americans should be able to read, speak, or write one or more 
foreign languages ? Would you include among these Japanese ? Portuguese ? 
Italian? Turkish? Chinese mandarin? Swedish? Dutch? Why, in each 
case? 

2. Are relatively large numbers of Japanese and Chinese able to use Eng- 
lish? Does this relieve us of the necessity of having Americans who can 
use their languages? 

3. Entering a certain large city high school are one hundred pupils of 
whom the following facts seem substantially true : all are of superior ability, 
as shown by elementary-school records ; they come from poor homes ; some 
will probably go to college or normal school, in spite of the very substantial 
financial hardships which that will entail; all will have to work hard in order 
to prosper at all well in the world's goods, since they must start life not only 
without capital, but probably in debt. Many of them will probably prefer to 
enter business without going to college. Assuming that those entering college 
need not present a foreign language for admission, how would you advise 
all of this hundred with regard to taking two or more years of foreign- 
language study? Would you recommend all to take some one language? If 
Japanese and Italian were ofifered, would you be glad to see some take one 
of these ? In any case, how much of the language would you recommend ? 
Why? 

459 • 



46o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



4. In a certain Colorado high school are one hundred girls of whom the 
following description is fairly correct: they are of only average ability and 
interest in school work; nearly all will enter upon wage-earning vocations 
in stores, laundries, and restaurants at or about sixteen years of age; their 
home environments are those of railroad and other manual workers; their 
"small-group" social interests are strong, but their "large-group" interests very 
weak; and their cultural interests are largely of the moving picture, Sunday 
newspaper, current fiction order. Most of these girls will be home-makers 
from the age of twenty-five on. 

Several of them want to elect Spanish in the high school (they are assumed 
not to be in commercial departments). Some want French. The parents of 
some believe in Latin. What advice would you give to these girls as to 
modern-language study? 

THE SOCIAL NEED 

Clearly, the war has given us, in the eyes of the other nations, and in 
the eyes of all Americans except a few "hill billies," that forefront position 
to which our wealth, our geographical size and position, and our social 
homogeneity and solidarity have long entitled us. We have spent three 
centuries settling and developing our zone of North America, and in this 
fertile soil, amidst favoring conditions, we have nurtured democracy, gen- 
eral intelligence, and good standards of living. Now our rewards, and our 
great responsibilities as well, come to us in the shape of pleas and demands 
that we shall do our part — the largest part, it may well prove to be — in 
redeeming the rest of the world from its imperfect state, in bringing to other 
peoples the blessings that have come to be ours partly through our own 
efforts and partly as a result of favoring conditions. 

It becomes henceforth our opportunity and obligation to carry our wares, 
material and spiritual, to other lands as never before. We have become 
overnight the world's second creditor nation. We seem likely to become 
again a great mercantile carrying nation. Our factories will seek export 
markets in all countries, and from these we may expect in return endless 
streams of raw materials, special foodstufifs, and locally fabricated goods. 
We shall increasingly find ourselves solicitous that throughout the world 
political harmony, equal justice to all, democracy, and diffused intelligence 
shall be found. Toward no war anywhere in the world can America in 
the future remain indifferent. We shall not permit any half-civilized people 
long to exclude religious, political, or scientific missionaries whose propa- 
ganda is founded on reasonable good will, and a due regard for the opinions 
of those am.ong whom they would spread the light. 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 461 

But if we are to lead, it becomes and behooves us to understand well those 
whom we are to lead. Commerce is promoted with extreme difficulty 
between those who must remain largely inarticulate in each other's presence. 
There can be no adequate mutual understanding and sympathy between 
Russia and America if neither possesses interpreters of the speech and 
writing of the other. At the present m.oment it is certain that Japan under- 
stands America very well, because thousands of Japanese can freely speak 
our language and read our books and journals; but we must sadly confess 
that the reverse is not true. In the long run, it is probably not well that 
a strong people, prone to fall into arrogance of spirit and conceit of under- 
standing, should require weaker peoples to make all advances in bridging 
the gaps in language, custom, and other factors of social inheritance that 
lie between. 

The partizan position, that hereafter the study of modern languages 
must and will play an increasingly important part in our national education, 
is very easy to defend. Hence the easy conviction, too, that we shall need 
greatly to extend the range of languages studied. Surely Japanese, Chinese, 
Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Turkish are to figure prominently in our 
international relationships in coming years. We can not well afiford that 
our consuls, traveling students, missionaries, and convention delegates in 
alien lands shall always require the uncertain aid of interpreters even in 
social intercourse. We are slowly becoming aware that if salesmen from 
America are to be effective in promoting business in foreign lands, they 
must speak the vernacular with ease, and be able to appreciate those local 
customs and points of view which can be well apprehended only by persons 
able to converse in that local vernacular and to read the local documents 
that give current expression to taste, standards, and ideals. 

Let us, then, greatly exalt the study of modern languages in our 
secondary and higher institutions of learning — that is the easily reached 
ex parte position. Recent years have witnessed almost the last of the 
many enforced retreats of Latin from its former highly protected positions ; 
henceforth the modern languages can claim equal standing with the classics 
in that court which, for the present, is the only arbiter of educational 
standards that can really enforce its decrees — namely, the court of college 
entrance tests. Let us endeavor to make the study of a foreign language an 
important part — perhaps second to English only, adequate mastery of 
which, it is alleged, study of another language should greatly reinforce — of 
the curricula of all secondary schools. Let us require every aspirant for a 
degree to prove his proficiency in one or two foreign tongues. Let us so 
often repeat certain of our choice dogmas that presently they will have 



462 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

become dogmas of democracy, such, for example, as : "A man who does 
not know a second language can never really know his own." "Without a 
knowledge of words there can be no real knowledge." "Without the 
knowledge of a people's language there can be no adequate knowledge of 
that people." "Language study affords an unequaled means of mental 
discipline ; and the grammar of language an especially valuable means of 
training in logical thinking." 

Such are the flights of educational fancy permitted in the present state 
of educational science to the devotees of particular branches of learning. 
But here, as elsewhere, the sociological student must keep all ends in view. 

Many of the historic ofiferings in schools of higher than primary grade 
have been provided in response to the demands of individuals, and without 
scientific consideration of the needs of the state or other social grouping 
in which these individuals must live and act. But now we inquire after 
the use of these offerings to the society of which the individual must be a 
part. 

For example, as regards the contemporary foreign languages, it has been 
the province, first of private, and later of public, effort to cater to individual 
demands, just as a pharmacist caters to individual demands for healing 
preparations. Instruction and training in foreign languages were first sold 
or given to those who desired to buy or take, with little consideration as 
to the values of these buyings or takings to others than the individual 
immediately concerned. 

Problems of relative values must now, however, be given first consid- 
eration. Why should we offer, with or without price, instruction and 
training in tongues other than our own? What benefits will accrue to 
society directly, or as a secondary consequence of benefits realized by the 
individual ? For whom is it advisable and profitable that opportunities for 
such study be provided? For persons of what grades of ability? Of 
what ages? Of what promise of future occupational or cultural develop- 
ment? What are actually the feasible and desirable vocational objectives 
of modern-language study? Under what conditions of attainment and 
application are these realized in degrees justifying needed expenditures of 
social effort? What are actually the valid cultural objectives of foreign- 
language study ? The civic or social objectives ? The "mental disciplinary" 
objectives — if any one now cares to raise the question of these as primary 
objectives? 

It is evident that the tendency of inquiries like the examples just given 
is to disturb the faiths and beliefs, perchance the illusions, that have been 
permitted to grow and take on fixed character in connection with almost 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 463 

every department of study. If the comparison may be pressed, they suggest 
that in the future the offerings of education, far from being Hke the 
nostrums available to any buyer in the primitive pharmacy, will be rather 
like the ministrations of modern medicine and sanitation — given only after 
scientific determination of needs to be served, diagnosis of conditions to 
be met, and careful estimate of the probabilities that the indicated means 
will realize the ends intended. 

Even a small amount of critical examination of the theory and practice 
of contemporary modern-language instruction in our schools and colleges 
will suffice to convince the impartial student that existing standards of aim, 
of functionings of means and methods, and of estimates of results are 
very vague and unsatisfactory. It is a reasonable estimate that we have 
been expending annually in recent years somewhere between seven and ten 
million dollars on modern-language instruction in the public high schools 
of America. The standard aims, qualitatively and quantitatively, of such 
instruction have been determined almost exclusively by college entrance 
committees. What is the evidence that these committees have systematically 
tried to determine valid social, or even individual, needs to be met ? Have 
they ever tried, cooperatively, to provide reliable estimates of the results 
accruing from existing practices? Have they ever tried to guide educa- 
tional administrators in determining the relative values of modern-language 
studies, as compared with the values of other studies that must be foregone 
if these are taken? 

Looked at in the light of present knowledge, a formidable indictment 
should be drawn against all present-day modern-language teaching in 
America, on account of its almost incredible superficiality. What enduring 
powers does it produce in the great majority of those taking it? What 
appreciations known to be worth while? We complacently permit our 
pupils often to elect, in their naive simplicity, a second modern language, 
when the most casual forecast of their probable educational future would 
show that in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred they will not, perhaps 
could not, pursue one alone to any point of genuine mastery. We educators 
talk about the virtues of thoroughness, and then calmly create, or at least 
tolerate without protest, conditions under which thoroughness is impossible 
of attainment. Educationally we are still a people content with futile 
beginnings, a people of pretentious works started but never to be finished, 
a people hypocritically pretending to culture when we possess only the 
tawdry imitations of culture. 

The superficiality of current modern-language training should not be 
blamed on pupils or their parents. Fundamentally, and in the long run, 



464 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

pupils and parents do what educators demand when such demands spring 
from a spirit of sincerity, and are manifestly based on definite educational 
knowledge. Collectively, it is we educators, specialists and administrators 
alike, who are responsible for the large amount of purposelessness and 
charlatanism characterizing our teaching, and especially in those hard school 
subjects in which certain difficult goals must be reached if the time and 
energy invested are to bring any real returns whatever. Modern-language 
teachers should possess generally approved and insistently voiced standards 
of aim, of definite objectives under stated conditions. Administrators 
framing curricula should be aided to evaluate comparatively the studies 
profitable for pupils of varying probable educational futures. Of what 
avail is a meager year or two of French to the eight hundred thousand 
pupils now in American schools, who will certainly leave all school life 
behind them after completing at most the tenth school grade? Scores of 
thousands of girls are now taking Spanish in our general, as well as in our 
commercial, courses ; to what per cent, of them will it ever prove in the 
least profitable, culturally or vocationally? 

But, it is said, what else can we do? Our schools are the schools of 
the people — are we to refuse to do what the people want us to do? If 
Spanish is offered at all, can we refuse any one the right to take it, or, 
having taken it a term or a year, to drop it? And if a misguided youngster 
takes French the first year, but wants to shift to German (pre-war German, 
of course) the second, who are we to say him nay? And if, in a village 
high school of one hundred pupils, the school board authorizes the teaching 
of Spanish, but influential Mrs. Brown insists that her daughter must have 
French, what shall we do ? What can we do ? 



PROBLEMS 

We can only reply that these and many other similar difficulties will 
always dog the footsteps of a profession that is itself lacking in technical 
and social standards. We must find out what we are striving for, or what 
we ought to be striving for, whether what we are striving for is worth the 
effort, and what are the new things to strive for that would almost surely 
be worth the effort. The following questions suggest some of the problems 
which, given resources and service for educational research, ought certainly 
to be capable of solution within the next decade; and if such work were 
done, we should presently be on sound ground for a genuine advance in 
the teaching of modern languages : 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 465 

1. What are, in such languages as French, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, 
ItaHan, Russian, and Portuguese practicable objectives that can be realized in 
the course of the general education of persons of A, B, C-|-, C, C — , D, and 
E grades of natural linguistic ability between the ages of twelve and twenty 
as a result of the devotion of from fifteen to twenty per cent, of available 
working time and energy, these objectives being separately defined in terms of : 

a. General reading knowledge of contemporary journals, books of average 
difficulty, etc. 

b. Abilities to understand spoken vernacular, and to speak it intelligibly, 

c. Abilities to write the vernacular with sufficient accuracy for practical or 
known vocational purposes. 

d. Abilities to read classics and to appreciate local literature and history 
in the foreign language. 

e. Mastery adequate to give cultivated speech, good reading knowledge, 
powers of translation and interpretation, etc. 

2. What are practicable and desirable objectives in such languages as Span- 
ish, Japanese, and French, for vocational schools, separately considered as to : 

a. Schools of salesmanship, boys of good ability and general schooling, ages 
seventeen to twenty, four-year course. 

b. Schools of stenography, girls of good ability, prerequisite two years of 
general high school, two-year course. 

c. Colleges for consuls, students of excellent ability, twenty to twenty-four, 
prerequisite two years general work. 

d. Engineering students, eighteen to twenty-two, preparing for work in 
America. 

3. What are optimum standards of diffusion of culture and of international 
understanding which should be sought for by American society through the 
study,, in accordance with stated standards of expected achievement, of, re- 
spectively : French language and literature (the word literature being used 
very comprehensively); Spanish language and literature; Russian language 
and literature ; German language and literature ? What estimates can now 
be made as to the proportions of men and women, masters of, and perma- 
nently interested in, these subjects, to stated degrees of excellence, who 
would diffuse culture and right social aspirations in optimum degree ? We 
would all agree that it is not practicable or necessary to have 100 per cent, 
of adults so qualified. What of a ratio of one to one hundred? One to one 
thousand ? 

4. Assuming that the country could afford to, and would, invest twenty 
million dollars of local and state funds annually in the teaching of modern 
languages, what, by good sociological standards, would constitute the probably 
best use of such money : 

a. What proportions should be given respectively to realization of ends of 
liberal, and of vocational, education? 



466 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

b. What proportions should be given respectively to each of the eight most 
used modern languages? 

c. How would selection be made of those on behalf of whom substantial 
investments should be made, and what conditions or obligations, if any, 
should accompany the privilege of studying the language ? 

d. At what age, for any given language, should study begin, and what 
would be the requirements for subsequent years of that study in programs 
recommended to students? 

e. Under what conditions would students be permitted or encouraged to 
take a second language? 

5. What, under reasonably good conditions of teaching, are the learning 
capacities of various grades of students in attaining the various objectives 
of modern-language teaching ? For example : 

a. Given a student of B grade (good) linguistic ability of age twelve, and 
thereafter free to give one fifth of his "working" school time to acquiring a 
reading knowledge of journalistic French — what powers can we reasonably 
expect at age sixteen? 

b. What powers of speaking and reading could we expect if the objectives 
had been combined? 

c. What reading knowledge of Japanese could be expected under these 
conditions ? 

d. What speaking knowledge of commercial Spanish? , 

6. At the age of eighteen a student, who has previously had no ^reign 
language, enters upon the study of a branch of engineering in whreh he 
learns that his progress and rewards will be greatly helped by a good reading 
knowledge of the technical matters of his subject in German: what program 
of language education should be recommended ? 

7. A clerk, twenty-five years old, in a commission house in New York, 
discovers that his opportunities for advancement would be greatly increased 
if he possessed a ready and accurate reading knowledge of the Spanish used 
in business correspondence. If he possesses average linguistic ability, what 
should be provided for him? 

NEW AIMS 

Certainly the war and its after consequences are bearing gifts of oppor- 
tunity to modern-language teachers. Hereafter several modern languages 
must be valued highly among our educational offerings. Latin and Greek 
now definitely take their dignified places in a democracy of studies, instead 
of occupying the artificially protected positions inherited by them, to their 
final disadvantage, from ancient practice. 

But let modern-language teachers beware of seeking profit from the 
perpetuation of old dogmas. Let them not try to erect protecting tariff 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 467 

walls whereby to upbuild or enhance their infant industries. Especially- 
let them avoid the unwise formation of little educational cults devoted to 
mutual interchange of thought, while being severely walled off from those 
other cults that likewise revolve in their own little orbits. Education tends 
steadily to discover new objectives not less valuable than the old. American 
education above the primary grades is destined to be endlessly flexible and 
varied, according to the native capacities and the probable future respon- 
sibilities of individuals or groups of individuals exhibiting likeness of re- 
quirement. It is incumbent upon each specialist to develop his specialty to 
the utmost ; but only at his peril dare he neglect to seek constantly to relate 
his specialty to the multitude of others that will be available. Let us hope 
that in a genuine sense every educator will in the future know all about 
something — his own specialty — and something about everything — the 
specialties of all others. 

THE PRESENT SITUATION 

The term "modern language" is here used to include not merely French, 
Spanish, and German as these have been customarily taught in our high 
schools, but also Japanese, a form of Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and 
other languages which, for social reasons, might well be included among 
the offerings of our lower and higher schools. 

The present situation as regards the teaching of modern languages 
in the schools of the United States is, as already noted, most unsatisfactory. 
College admission standards, as well as popular sentiment, have greatly 
encouraged the offering of French, German, and Spanish in our high 
schools, academies, and colleges. Probably more than one third of all the 
pupils in our high schools give one or more years to a modern language, 
and an appalling number make beginnings in two or even three of these 
languages. It is no underestimate that the cost of modern-language teach- 
ing in our public schools alone approximates ten million dollars annually. 

Yet for this large outlay it would seem that we have very little to show. 
It is certainly the experience of most educators that ten years after leaving 
secondary school most of the students who have taken modern languages 
are unable to exhibit either reading or conversational powers in them. 
Doubtless all of our secondary education is superficial ; but it may be seri- 
ously questioned whether superficiality is as wasteful in any other field as 
it is in the learning of a modern language. Our higher institutions assume 
that reading knowledge of a modern language is valuable, if not essential, 
to the prosecution of higher studies. Nevertheless very few of them 



468 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

apparently make very serious attempts to insure the functioning of such 
knowledge and skill in the use of such foreign-language mastery as entrants 
bring from secondary schools. 

The objectives of modern-language instruction are, obviously, imper- 
fectly formulated as yet. A wide gap exists between the aspirations 
expressed in papers before teachers' bodies, and the actual achievements of 
our schools. Nowhere is the "codfish" method of reproduction more fully 
paralleled than in this field. Few indeed have been the attempts thus far 
to trace connections between modern-language instruction in our schools and 
service in our society at large. The aims now controlling are variously for- 
mulated. Probably first among our aspirations is the broad cultural pur- 
pose. Foreign-language study is designed to enable the student to compre- 
hend the literature and the spirit of the country whose language he studies. 
This may be closely related to the more utilitarian aim often urged upon 
students of science and history — namely, that they must be able to go 
to the literatures in the language in order to find materials for further 
study. 

The aim next in importance historically has unquestionably been the dis- 
ciplinary. The source of this conception is not difficult to find. As it 
became harder to defend Latin in schools and admission requirements as 
a required subject on grounds of its contribution to general culture, edu- 
cators developed the practice of defending it as an unrivaled means of 
intellectual discipline. The various dogmas evolved in this connection are 
now familiar to most students of education. 

The proponents of modern-language study early undertook to prove that 
training in a modern language can be made as "hard" or disciplinary as 
the study of Latin or Greek. The modern language trains pupils to 
observe, to reason logically, to concentrate, and to discriminate finer shades 
of meaning. But this doctrine of the unique importance of any foreign- 
language study as a means of mental discipline has now been substantially 
destroyed. 

Frequently, too, it has been urged that the study of modern language 
is essential to the fuller comprehension of the mother tongue. This doc- 
trine sometimes assumes the broader dogmatic form that no clear thinking 
or extended language power is practicable except through the possession 
of at least two tongues. Such articles of faith now need thoroughgoing 
examination; they are of very doubtful validity. 

Finally come considerations of commercial utility. Spanish has been 
urged for introduction into secondary schools because of the considerable 
possibilities of commercial intercourse with the Spanish-speaking countries 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 469 

lying south of us. Several hundred thousand pupils in our American high 
schools are now taking Spanish, in vague anticipation of being able to 
employ it later to advantage in commercial ways. It would seem that thus 
far little consideration has been given to relative probabilities that men 
or women will enter upon vocations in which the possession of a speaking 
or reading knowledge of Spanish would be an advantage. Little considera- 
tion seems also to have been thus far given to the relative probability that 
persons from different parts of the country will enter upon such vocations. 
There must be many reasons why it would be more profitable for the pupils 
in the high schools of Texas, southern New York, or Louisiana to take 
Spanish than those of Maine, Ohio, and Minnesota. 

TENTATIVE FINDINGS 

The social objectives of modern-language study in our schools are 
capable of more adequate formulation than has yet been attempted. It is 
suggested that the following considerations, fully studied, might easily lead 
to the development of a set of guiding principles : 

a. It is certainly of importance to the United States, as one of the 
company of influential nations, and as a nation standing very high indeed 
in wealth, general intelligence, and international influence, that among its 
citizens there should always be found some who would be well trained 
in, and generally enthusiastic about, the languages and literatures, re- 
spectively, of the Japanese, French, Chinese, Germans, Spanish, Por- 
tuguese, Russians, Italians, Greeks, and some other peoples. 

b. It would be relatively a great waste of educational effort to try to 
have large proportions of our peoples so trained. We have no means, as 
yet, of ascertaining whether the interests of the nation would be adequately 
served if one per cent, or only one hundredth of one per cent, of all persons 
receiving a full secondary education ultimately became proficient, in the 
sense herein indicated, in any one of the languages named. Somewhere 
between these extremes, certainly, optimum proportions are to be found. 
One can imagine a situation in which every urban or rural community in 
the United States of not more than five thousand oeople would be likely to 
possess within its confines at least one proficient and enthusiastic reader 
and speaker of Japanese or Russian or Italian or German. 

c. Schools might well differentiate several types of distinctive objectives 
in this field, modern-language instructors to the contrary notwithstanding. 
There is no reason why a school should not set up as a goal in French a 
reading knowledge only of ordinary scientific or commercial publications. 



470 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Such knowledge might be quite independent of any considerable speaking 
or composing powers in that language. Similarly, it might be possible to 
train toward the easy conversational uses of Spanish, without necessarily 
training to the point where the reading of literary Spanish would be a 
facile operation. 

d. Wherever practicable, modern-language study should be encouraged 
only on the part of those who will probably have ample time and sufficient 
ability to realize valid objectives. Probably these should, in many cases, 
be independent of useful cultural achievements and vocational success along 
other lines. In other words, the cultural mastery of a modern language, 
as here suggested, would be undoubtedly achieved in the majority of cases 
as a cultural by-product. 

e. Granted the validity of these aims, many reasons exist for providing 
early in the secondary curriculum for initial training in a modern lan- 
guage. There exist no inherent reasons why, at least in our urban schools, 
opportunities for modern-language study should not be available as early 
as the fifth or sixth grade, provided a discriminating selection of students 
therefor were administratively feasible. 

/. Best results could probably be assured, if collective action over a 
wide area were practicable, if the state would place a premium upon the 
study of any specified modern language and its literature by offering such 
opportunities on some competitive basis. Thus, in a school area in which 
five thousand pupils normally entered the fifth grade, one might be 
selected each year to be given extended opportunities for the study of 
Japanese. Such selection should be made, first of all, on the basis of 
probable linguistic abilities, and as a second condition there should be 
required the pledge of parents to cooperate in allowing the student thus 
selected to study the language in school and college for a number of years 
sufficient to obtain genuine mastery. The conditions of such mastery 
should naturally be indicated clearly in advance — the probable amount 
of time and effort required, and the obligations that would be entered 
upon. 

FURTHER PROBLEMS 

The following problems are in need of further study : 

a. In the case of children of no distinctive foreign ancestry, what are 
probable indications that modern-language study can be prosecuted by 
them with most success? Would superior ability in English speech or 
writing be probably a valuable index? Would high ranking in general 



FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 471 

intelligence be a good index? Could a still more effective means be dis- 
covered through a brief "trial" period of the study of the foreign lan- 
guage itself ? Would special tests of vocal or auditory powers be worth 
while? Here early experimentation is practicable. 

h. To what extent, in any field of organized knowledge of a vocational 
nature, is the ability to read in a foreign language likely to prove here- 
after functional? Under what conditions do discoveries recorded in 
French, for example, in fields of electrical engineering, science, or medi- 
cine, remain for many years "embalmed" as far as America is concerned in 
French ? What is the situation since the great War in regard to chemistry 
and chemical engineering as relates to a reading knowledge of German? 
What classes of professional workers in the United States would at 
the present time be benefited by a reading knowledge of Japanese? 

c. What is the extent of the demand for various types of workers who 
can employ respectively a speaking, a reading, and a writing knowledge of 
Spanish? More specifically, what will be the probable annual demand in 
the commercial area served by Boston high schools for young men and 
young women, respectively, who can read commercial Spanish, understand 
and speak oral Spanish, or write letters in Spanish? 

d. Similar problems should be studied in regard to Chinese, Russian, 
Portuguese, Danish, Italian, and other languages the study of which might 
well be urged for reasons of commercial intercourse. 

e. What is the relation, if any, between the wide social demand for 
modern-language study and the geographic area served by certain schools ? 
Should we expect, for example, that as much Spanish in proportion to 
population should be offered in the schools of Missouri, Iowa, or Min- 
nesota as in those of New York, Maryland, and California? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bagster- Collins^ E. W. The Teaching of German in Secondary 

Schools (Ch. 2, Aim of a Course). 
Bahlsen, L. The Teaching of Modern Languages. 
Breul^ K. The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages. 
Hall^ G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 15, Vol. II). 
Inglis, a. Principles of Secondary Education (Ch. 13, The Place of 

the Foreign Languages). 
Jespersen^ p. How to Teach a Foreign Language. 
Johnston, C. H. High School Education (Ch. 14, Modern Languages 

(W. A. Carruth), contains bibliography). 



472 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Krause, C. a. The Direct Method in Modern Languages (Ch. 3, The 
Trend of Modern Language Instruction in the United States). 

WiLKiNS, L. A. Spanish in the High Schools (Ch. 2, Why Teach 
Spanish?; Ch. 5, The Aims in Teaching Spanish). 



CHAPTER XXXV 
THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

ALL contemporary culture is rooted in old cultures. Culturally, 
Americans are descended from ancient Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, 
and Arabs, no less than from Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic ancestors. Much 
of the current religious tradition of Christianity derives from Hebrew 
sources. Our art and literature root back into Greek origins. The 
language and politics of English-speaking peoples owe much to the 
Romans. The Arabs gave us largely of their originated or acquired 
stores of mathematics and science. 

The study of these origins has for some persons a fascination. These 
can make of the classic studies sources of deep and genuine culture. 
Historian, philologist, and sociologist find themselves constantly harking 
back to ancient records for new interpretations of knowledge ; and occa- 
sionally that knowledge is very practically applicable to study of present- 
day problems. 

There are other ancient languages and literatures, less directly con- 
nected with our own, which also provide centers of keen interest for 
chosen spirits. Antiquarians, at least, are convinced that the sum total 
of "worth-while" human knowledge has much to gain from researches 
into Sanskrit, Chinese, Erse, Aztec, and Babylonian sources. 

Current controversies as to the educational values of the ancient lan- 
guages center almost wholly around their prescription in secondary school 
or college. It has heretofore been assumed that no true "liberal educa- 
tion" was complete without some acquaintance, at least, with Latin and 
the most noted of the classics in that language. Some of these problems 
emerge in discussion of questions like the following: 

1. What are phases of older Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and medieval his- 
tory that make strong cultural appeals to you? What surviving literatures 
of these periods make vivid appeal to your tastes? 

2. Give examples showing how well known American writers — Hawthorne, 
Lowell, Longfellow, Moody, Poe, and others — drew upon classical sources. In 
what respects do they seem better or worse for this than Cooper, Mark Twain, 
Whitman, and others who were less interested in such sources? 

3. How do you explain the strong position still held by Latin in high schools, 
academies, and colleges? What proportion of the students of that subject 
now usually acquire abiding interests in Roman literature? 

473 



474 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

4. In a liberal arts secondary or collegiate education, does it seem essential 
to you that Latin or Greek be prescribed for all? Should not these subjects 
always be open for election by students in large schools? Why? 

5. What are, in your estimation, the chief "educational values" to be derived 
from four years' study of Latin as that subject is now standardized? Con- 
sider separately: discipline of memory; light on the origins of English words; 
better mastery of English grammar through comparison with Latin gram- 
mar ; vivid insight into some portions of ancient literary culture ; same, of 
ancient history and geography. 

6. Assume that in a large high school fifty girls enter each year who are: 
above the average in ability ; likely to go to women's colleges ; as yet without 
keen or distinctive cultural interests ; probably destined to marry well, and 
to be socially influential, if not prominent, in their later community life. These 
girls will study substantially what the school recommends for their kind. As- 
sume colleges willing to admit on fifteen units of any approved studies. You 
are asked to advise, where choices must be made, as to whether these girls 
had better give four years to Latin or to : a modern language ; two years of 
biological and two years of social sciences; two years of home economics and 
two years of graphic arts appreciation. By what standards of "educational 
values" would you recommend these choices? 

7. Assume yourself undertaking the study of Spanish to the point of easy 
reading knowledge. You can give about twelve hundred hours (through six 
years) to such study. Would it probably be better for you to give the first 
two years to Latin and the next four to Spanish? Or all six to Spanish? 

EDUCATIONAL VALUES OF LATIN AND GREEK ^ 

For many years controversies have raged in various countries as to the 
educational values of "the classics." Nearly all American colleges long 
required Latin for admission. The more conservative do yet in the 
case of candidates for the A. B. degree. The grounds for this require- 
ment have not always been the same. It has been variously held that 
the primary values to be realized through the study of Latin are: (c) 
possession of the, or at least a, necessary language of learning; {h) 
participation in that part of our social inheritance, especially humanistic, 
which centers in Roman literature and history; (c) mental training 
through vigorous study of an unfamiliar language; and {d) improved 
command over expression and apprehension of English as results of 
acquaintance with certain sources of English, and with the grammar of 
another language. 

^ Read also D. Snedden, Sociological Determination of the Objectives of Edu- 
cation (Ch. s, The Essentials of Liberal Education without Latin). 



THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 475 

Opposition to the privileged positions of Latin and Greek has grown 
largely in proportion as other subjects become sufficiently well organized 
for purposes of secondary or collegiate education. Obviously, the basic 
problem is one of relative values. Few would contend that Latin and 
Greek possess no educational values for students sufficiently well endowed 
to pursue them — -values, that is, either from the standpoint of their own 
welfare and satisfactions, or from that of the social groups in which they 
are to live and serve. But many hold that students required to give 
one fourth or one eighth of their school time for four years to these 
classic studies are thereby deprived of opportunity to study other things 
that would be of more value to them — again in their individual capacities, 
or in relation to their social responsibilities. Originally the more desirable 
alternatives were alleged to be the natural sciences ; then the modern 
■ languages ; again the social sciences ; or now the "practical" studies. 

These battles, inevitably, have been waged in the fields of belief and 
speculation as to comparative educational values. Only rarely does it 
seem to have occurred to the disputants that these values might vary 
greatly according to the native abilities or acquired powers of learners. 
Only now are attempts being m.ade to test these values scientifically — 
attempts that, in the very nature of the case, must remain tentative as 
long as underlying standards of educational and social value are them- 
selves as subjective and hypothetical as they still are. 

Recent discussion has brought into relief certain aspects of the general 
problem that were largely obscured in earlier controversies. It is now 
commonly agreed that the "mental training values" of Latin are specific 
rather than general, and that its "historical and archaeological values" are 
much smaller for the typical student of to-day than has heretofore been 
contended by protagonists. The advocates of Latin seem now to place 
in the foreground the alleged contributions of that study to greater 
mastery of English. But, obviously, the social values of such enhanced 
mastery can only be measured by standards that are still largely subjective 
and tentative. Is it really very important in a democracy that men of 
good abilities should learn to write "fine English," or to read English 
with much discrimination? Those rare minds which are capable of 
producing genuine literature must, obviously, be excluded from the argu- 
ment, since it is not in evidence that any amount of education beyond 
simple literacy greatly aiTects their creative genius. At least,' that seems 
a reasonable inference when we consider the Shakespeares, Whitmans, 
Bunyans, and numberless other self-educated contributors to literature. 
The great social prestige shown by the classics during the last two 



476 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

centuries was acquired earlier. Then Latin and Greek were in reality 
languages indispensable to scholars and publicists ; and the literatures in 
those languages must be known by all men of the Western World pre- 
tending at all to erudition. In a very real sense, these were then the 
leading humanistic studies. 

The humanities are commonly understood to be those studies that 
enlarge the vision and increase the spiritual possessions and values of men. 
The social psychologist can not doubt that each generation of any people 
produces a few who combine high gifts of intelligence with exceptionally 
strong predispositions toward altruistic service on the one hand, or 
toward esthetic perception on the other. Whether the "crossing" of 
races produces these variations in greater abundance, as is often asserted, 
is still an obscure problem in human heredity. . But there can be little 
doubt that certain minglings of cultural heritages give these choice spirits 
environment and opportunity which serve to cultivate in marked degree 
their special talents. They grow by what they feed upon. They compete 
with each other for whatever distinctions their era and social situation 
make valuable. 

Such men — we may call them leaders or artists, scholars or saints, 
reformers or pioneers, according to circumstance — naturally and inevitably 
turn toward the richest lights of which they can learn. In the centuries 
from the thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth the men of this kind who 
appeared in western Europe — including Italy — must perforce attach high 
values to the Grecian and old Roman arts and learning which were then 
being resurrected. The vernacular languages were still formative, and 
their literatures chaotic and incipient.^ 

The humanistic studies for such persons were first of all the long 
buried literatures of Greece and Rome. In these survived finished form, 
penetrating vision, a wealth of suggestion of ordered art and scholarly 
composition. Eventually geniuses from Dante to Chaucer inaugurated 
a new vernacular literature, but for centuries after them men of scholarly 
inclinations still relied heavily upon the classics. The Christian Church 
and the aristocracy of learning largely favored such reliance, and not 
uncommonly study of Greek and Latin became a pedantic end in itself 
instead of a means to the culture and power that could be put to social 
service. 

The new humanities — do they still include the ancient languages and 
literatures ? For some rare spirits, probably yes. For the great majority 
of those who nourish great gifts of talent toward the service of the art, 

^ Consult P. Monroe, History of Education. 



THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 477 

science, and leadership that shall enrich civilization, distinctly no ! During 
the first two decades of the twentieth century students of the social 
sciences in American colleges and universities multiplied manyfold. 
Rarely have these social sciences — economics, sociology, interpretations of 
history, anthropology, social psychology, social economy, and other 
divisions — ^been found in the lists of "required" studies. Nevertheless 
they have been eagerly sought — and in many cases by men and women of 
much the same aspirations and abilities as those of the humanists of cen- 
turies earlier. Motives of social service, of expanding useful and beautiful 
knowledge, and of otherwise bringing happiness to the world, have been 
much the same as those supporting the earlier humanities. 

PROBABLE FINAL ADJUSTMENTS 

The long struggle of the proponents of Greek to maintain a privileged 
position for that subject came definitely to an end some years ago. .The 
reaction seems to have carried Greek undeservedly low. There would 
seem to be no good reasons why certain minority groups of students in 
large high schools and colleges should not be encouraged to pursue that 
as one of their select "cultural" subjects. For those who have talent and 
time the rewards of such study should be great — comparable to those to 
be derived from devoted pursuit, over a series of years, of certain kinds 
of music, of a modern language and its literature, or of some field of 
science. 

Latin still retains a much "protected" position, especially because of 
its prescription in the admission requirements of prominent colleges. 
But it is doubtful whether such prescription will long continue. The 
historic faiths that have heretofore sustained it are now steadily declining. 
It is highly improbable that the researches now being prosecuted will 
reveal any unique educational values to be derived from the study of 
Latin as now standardized. 

Proposals are sometimes made looking to the teaching of Latin as a 
"living" language. Conversational methods are employed by a few 
teachers of exceptional enthusiasm. But why all this pother — except on 
behalf of that small proportion of students having the kinds of ability, 
time, and enthusiasm necessary to make of this a field of special culture? 

Latin, as a study of language and literature, like Greek, will presently 
find its place among the cultural electives that a generous system of 
secondary and liberal arts college education may be expected increas- 
ingly to make available to our prospective cultural leaders. Not many 



478 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

will elect the subject — but those who do will naturally become radiating 
centers of enthusiasm and interpretation, thus contributing their special 
quotas to the "culture of their society as a whole. 

Special studies derived from Latin may yet be developed as means 
of training in appreciation or execution of English. "Word analysis" 
has long had such a role. Possibly "short unit" courses in word deriva- 
tion or comparative grammar will yet be found to serve valuable purposes 
in secondary education as electives for those especially interested in 
appreciation of English writing as a source of culture, or in the effective 
writing of English. 

CURRENT PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVES 

Solutions of two kinds of problems must be had before the final 
positions of Latin and Greek in school and college can be determined. 
First, what are the actual values to different classes of students of the 
studies that could replace Latin and Greek? Second, what are, specifi- 
cally, the cultural or other values actually to be derived, again by several 
potential groups of learners, from the classics? 

The following are some of these specific problems that still await 
solution : 

1. It will be conceded that, whatever the position ultimately given to 
Greek and Latin in schools, it is desirable that the American people should 
always have some persons enthusiastically devoted, avocationally, to keep- 
ing alive, and in prosecuting further researches into, Old Irish, Norse, 
Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Inca, Greek, Rom,an, and other 
ancient sources of culture. What proportions of individuals ought to 
develop these interests if our national culture is to be broad and dynamic? 
Where should they be expected to begin to cultivate these special interests ? 

2. If experience proves that moderate amounts of study of Latin 
serve valuable purposes in the liberal education of students expecting 
ultimately to take a Bachelor of Arts degree, is it desirable that oppor- 
tunities be provided for the election of such study as early as the seventh 
grade in junior high schools? Or would it be best to advise students 
to defer such study until the tenth grade? 

3. For what classes of students, and to what extent, in comparison 
with other studies, can Latin or Greek literature and related subjects be 
made to serve as "humanities" or vital "humanistic studies" under 
twentieth-century American conditions? 



THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 479 

4. How do the values to be derived from study of classic literature in 
translation, as well as from the study of the history and social life of 
Greeks and Romans through secondary sources in English, compare with 
the values to be derived from study of the original classics ? 

5. Certain sciences and professions obviously employ Latin largely as 
a source of technical terms. Law and theology also derive from it a 
variety of formulae and significant citations. To what extent does 
secondary-school Latin constitute helpful preparation toward using these 
applications? What amount of labor would normally be required to 
master these roots and other sources if special "short unit" courses 
designed for that purpose were offered in professional schools or in 
connection with courses in biological science? 

6. What are the actual contributions made by two or four years' study 
of Latin toward helping in the mastery of French, Spanish, or Italian? 
Would any similar contributions be derived toward mastery of German? 
Russian? Japanese? 

7. To what extent does study, brief or prolonged, of Latin or of Greek, 
aid students in realizing the several objectives of advanced study of 
English speech, writing, and appreciative reading? Does it contribute to 
"building of vocabulary"? To comprehension of grammar? How will 
these contributions vary for students of different abilities? Different 
interests in quality of their English? 

SUMMARY 

It is submitted that a majority of those well informed educators who 
have had serious occasion to consider the comparative educational values 
of all the subjects that can now profitably be taught in schools and colleges 
would support these principles : 

1. Neither Greek nor Latin should be "required subjects" in (a) any 
secondary school, (b) for admission to any ordinary college degree, or 
(c) for admission to any professional school. 

2. Neither Latin nor Greek is entitled to "preferred" positions in 
school or college curricula on account of their superior values as mental 
"gymnastics" or training. 

3. Every large secondary school and college should offer elective courses 
in the Greek and in the Latin language, with the explicit intention that 
students taking them should be only those of superior abilities and interests 
in these fields who would expect to follow introductory study of these 



48o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

languages by extensive study of the literatures in them. But certainly 
only for most exceptional reasons should a student elect both Latin and 
Greek in the secondary-school period. 

4. Junior and senior high schools might well offer a short unit elective 
course of perhaps sixty hours in "word analysis" or "word derivation" 
as a part of its English-language offerings. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bennett and Bristol. The Teaching of Latin and Greek in Secondary 

Schools. 
Corcoran, C. Studies in the History of Classical Teaching. 
Kelsey, F. W. Latin and Greek in American Education. 
Slaughter, M. S'. The High School Course in Latin. 
West, A. F. (editor). Value of the Classics. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 
ENGLISH LITERATURE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

SINCE the invention of printing, at least, the culture of a people is more 
certainly indicated by its interests in good reading than in any other 
way. To make a people literate is not necessarily to assure the prevalence 
of interests in literature, as American experience testifies. We are very 
much a reading people ; but by conventional tests our prevailing cultural 
standards are not high, nor are our tastes fine. 

Recent years have seen great advances in the teaching of literature in 
schools — and in all grades. What are the fruits thus far? Each reader 
of these pages is, in a sense, an exhibit. Why was literature taught to 
you? What part does literature now play in your Hfe? 

1. Analyze and describe some of your present interests in literature — novels, 
short stories, drama (for reading), biography, classical poetry, modern poetry, 
essays, etc. Where and how did these start? What part was performed in 
initiating or nurturing these interests by educational agencies — schools, courses 
in English, libraries, lectures, and the like? In what ways did you spon- 
taneously develop some of these interests ? Which of them, in your estimation, 
are distinctly adult interests — ^that is, not normally to be expected in children 
or adolescents? 

2. Try to interpret what your interests in literature have meant to you 
during the last five years — separately considering such values as : intel- 
lectual recreation when wearied by work ; easing of mind and spirit in seasons 
of trouble ; giving insight into relatively unknown aspects of life ; sheer 
pleasure from beauty, imagination, and humor; and causing you to feel your- 
self the equal of cultivated persons. Do you find other values to report? 

3. In the light of your experience, should we expect the tastes and interests 
in literature that can normally be developed to differ widely among various 
classes of adolescents and adults? Do girls or women exhibit some literary 
interests that differ from those exhibited by large groups of boys or men? 
Are these interests probably closely correlated with intelligence? With ar- 
tistic appreciation? Vocational pursuits? Wealth? Schooling? Do women 
or men read more of fiction? Modern poetry? The Saturday Evening Post? 

4. Try to interpret, in terms of the experience of yourself or of others 
whom you have observed, the phrase "literature interprets [or is] life itself." 
Does this mean "all life," or some one section of it? Apply to: a novel of 

481 



482 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Scott, Dickens, or Hawthorne; some recent short stories; the Iliad; Kipling's 
Kim; Hiawatha. 

5. "The study of Hterature elevates us morally and spiritually." Is this true 
in your experience? Do all kinds of literature do it? Which kinds in greatest 
degree ? Does such elevation depend much upon the reader's interest ? What 
are some examples of literature that have, in your estimation, spiritually 
changed large numbers of people? Separately consider: the Book of Job; 
Pilgrim's Progress; Dickens' David Copperfield; Kipling's later poems; 
Whitman's poetry; Shakespeare's Hamlet; Winston Churchill's novels; St. 
Elmo; Thoreau's Papers; the novels of Harold Bell Wright; other examples. 

6. What seem to you to be some of the "spiritual" or other values of the 
short stories now so abundantly produced and read? What are essential dif- 
ferences, not in technique, but in effects on readers, as between those found 
in the higher class magazines, and those found in Sunday papers and low- 
priced magazines ? 

7. To what extent does it seem to you a desirable and worthy function of 
literature to provide "pure diversion," or intellectual recreation ? From what 
kinds of literature do you derive most of these effects — classical or recent 
novels, poetry or prose, short stories or long? Is it your opinion that many 
people, tired by their work, could or would get intellectual recreation from: 
George Eliot's novels; The Education of Henry Adams; Whitman's verse? 

8. For purposes of educational science should we accept the critic's defini- 
tions and tests of literature — or should we include under that term all non- 
technical reading matter (technical reading being that of other school subjects 
of specific vocations) ? If we accept the former position, then we must estab- 
lish a second subject, "general reading," which is confusing. Let us, there- 
fore, take here the second position. What objections do we find to including 
supplemental readers, ordinary newspaper and magazine reading, children's 
stories, stories of travel, biographies, and standard classics all under the term 
"literature," as that is to be used in discussing educational objectives? 

9. Why should we use school time and money to "teach" literature? The 
mechanics of silent reading once mastered, a large proportion of young people 
take "naturally" to literature and preserve reading interests — frequently 
tawdry 01* "low-brow" ones — throughout adult years. Is it desirable that 
Americans should read yet more widely than now of : daily newspapers ; cheap 
magazines; popular fiction? Why? 

What are the actual values of "much reading" of political kinds ? Voca- 
tional ? Esthetic ? Informational ? Answer from your own experience, and 
as an observer. Is literature one of our best and most available means toward 
"the wise use of leisure"? Can literature debauch or degrade as well as 
uplift? 

10. Can we defend the thesis that, as respects literature, the first purpose 
of the school should be to insure permanent interests of some kind, and then 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 483 

to strive toward the establishment of higher, more noble, more refined, more 
spiritually nurtural appreciations and interests ? In light of these general ob- 
jectives, what are the more valuable types of literature respectively for: 

a. Ages four to six? 

h. Ages six to nine? 

c. Boys and girls, ages nine to twelve, considered separately? 

d. Same, ages twelve to fifteen and further classified as of inferior, average, 
and superior intelligence? 

e. Same ability levels, ages fifteen to eighteen, from urban environments? 
/. Same, rural environments? 

II. How, in a scheme of literature for schools, shall we relate the classics 
to contemporary literature? Which is the more important to adults? Which 
can better remain to be "self-taught"? 

Do moderately well cultivated adults now read abundantly, or even mod- 
erately, of: Milton, Dryden, Pope, Matthew Arnold, Whittier, Browning? 
Addison, De Quincey, Burke, Taine, Carlyle, Newman, Emerson ? Shakespeare ? 
Fielding, Scott, Cooper, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne? What, for Ameri- 
cans, should be expected interests in translations of : the Iliad, Divine Com- 
edy, War and Pea.ce (Tolstoi), Crime and Punishment, Les Miserablesf 

How do the foregoing seem to compare in interest for adolescents with 
more recent productions now in process of becoming classics — by Kipling, 
Van Dyke, Roosevelt, Burroughs, Muir, Lew Wallace, Mark Twain, Tenny- 
son, Lagerlof ? For what types of readers were the classics originally writ- 
ten? Interpret, for several of the above, the milieu in which each was 
written, and which is necessarily reflected in them, as respects : scientific 
knowledge of the world; prevailing relations of men and women; popular 
attitudes toward war; prevailing religious beliefs; relations of "upper" and 
"lower" social classes; prevailing interests in nature; beliefs in a future 
life, etc. 



LITERATURE IN SCHOOLS 

Why teach literature in schools? The cynical assert, in the first place, 
that we never have taught "literature" in our schools, and in the second 
place that literature can not be taught there. There is a measure of 
truth, in each contention, and likewise much untruth. 

There is abundant evidence in old school and college textbooks that 
until very recently educators sought to teach what was believed to be 
essential knowledge about literature. Especially common in former years 
were histories of literature — books containing condensed biographies of 
scores, if not hundreds, of famous authors, wijh brief extracts from their 
best known works. Representative authors from Chaucer to Tennyson 



484 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

were each given space sufficient to contain a record of the dates of their 
births and deaths, Hsts of their works, and perhaps a few outstanding 
events of their hves and associations. 

In later books, especially those for secondary schools, the numbers of 
authors to be studied is somewhat reduced, and ampler extracts from 
their works are given. Almost within our own generation the study of 
one or more complete works of an author — a novel, a drama, or a long 
poem — was fostered in secondary schools by college admission authorities. 
But, aside from what might be called the persisting historical purpose, it 
would appear that the controlling aims in the study of these selections 
were chiefly rhetorical — that is, they were studied analytically to dis- 
cover essential characteristics of structure, style, historical setting, and 
the like. College admission requirements in composition and rhetoric, as 
well as in the "history of literature," have thus far controlled in the 
determination of nearly all well defined objectives. 

It is doubtful whether, under these conditions, many teachers thought 
seriously about "appreciations" as an aim, in the sense in which the 
term is now frequently used. It was obvious that large numbers of 
students retained no permanent interests in the classical literature they 
had dissected and memorized. But, it would have been contended, they 
were at least "well informed" as to the great literature in the English 
language, and as to the technical factors that make such literature great. 
Their later literary interests they must choose and make for themselves. 

Literature in the elementary school has had a very different history. 
For centuries, probably, the "readers" were composed in large part of 
choice literary selections, which as literature were frequently "over the 
heads" of all but the ablest pupils. But in the later decades of the nine- 
teenth century the elementary-school curriculum was "enriched" very 
generally with supplemental readings, not only in geography and history, 
but. in those other general readings of stories, romances, poems, and 
dramas that constitute in fact a large part of the literature of childhood, 
whether the critical o,nes call it "literature" or not. Some selections — 
Evangeline, Snow-Bound, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and others 
were frequently designed for intensive study, in imitation of high-school 
methods. But much the larger portion of it was for free reading in school 
or at home. The more progressive schools provided libraries of those 
books of good quality which appealed to the tastes of large numbers of 
children. Public libraries often cooperated by setting apart children's 
rooms and developing helpful lists of children's books. By these means 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 485 

reading interests have been nurtured and established among large numbers 
of children. 



OBJECTIVES 

^ <f^The objectives of the school study of literature are, nevertheless, still 
largely unsettled. Is it of any considerable importance that we teach 
to all secondary-school students the history of literature — interesting as 
that study may prove to the few desiring to elect it? Few educators will 
now answer that question affirmatively. Neither will many now contend 
that any considerable time should be given to the analytical study of 
literature for the purpose of increasing knowledge of rhetoric or of 
promoting abilities in writing compositions. 

The primary purpose of the school in teaching literature should be to 
establish permanent interests in reading — and preferably in good reading. 
That would probably now be given by a large majority of educators as 
the most important general objective — the one that should practically 
control in the choice of selections, flexibility of offerings, and methods 
of teaching. They would further agree that the tastes and interests which 
it is practicable to produce will vary greatly among individuals — perhaps 
between sexes, and in some correspondence with native abilities. Interests 
in current magazine articles, in the less "artistic" fiction, and in 
other popular current books, constitute from this standpoint valid educa- 
tional rriotives — to be expanded, refined, and elevated, certainly, as far 
as practicable Pursuit of these objectives has already greatly affected 
the teaching of literature in elementary schools. Their influence on high- 
school curricula is already in evidence, but in lesser degree as yet. 

But all this leaves the larger issues still in doubt. What, after all, are 
the "goods," social or individual, that result from painstaking establish- 
ment of these literary interests ? What are the different values of "good" 
and of "cheap" literature? Books on Hterature, almost always written, 
naturally, by gifted persons who have long cultivated tastes for what 
is held to be technically superior literature, greatly exalt various "values" 
alleged to arise from study of "literature" — as they define it. But these 
writers deal excessively in "counsels of perfection." They seem to take 
no account of inferior minds, mediocre natural foundations of esthetic 
or intellectual interest, or preoccupations with other concerns. They are 
aristocratic rather than democratic — in the cultural sense — in their outlook 
upon life. They are "high-brow," whether they know it or not. Their 



486 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

contempt for "popular" magazines, novels, and poetry is usually wither- 
ing. Their respect seems great for the man who "when he hears of a 
new book rereads an old one." 

These connoisseurs are a seriously disturbing force to educators. In 
their warfare upon the commonplace they seem to forget the needs and 
potentialities of common minds. They ardently espouse, or bitterly 
condemn, the ideal of "art- for art's sake," complacently ignoring the 
implications of democratic culture. Because so many of these superior 
critics occupy chairs in higher institutions of learning they greatly affect 
the standards of taste acquired by secondary-school teachers. The latter 
seldom develop confidence in their own judgments. But they are the 
ones who encounter the limitations and variabilities in adolescent response. 
They are the ones who must still bear the brunt of the questions, "Why 
should we teach — or try to teach — literature? What literature should 
we try to teach? Toward what socially or personally 'worth-while' ends 
should we teach it?" 

- The social world about us must give us our first clues to solutions of 
these problems. Among all progressive peoples are now to be found large 
numbers of adults in whose lives literature plays substantial roles. Busily 
employed persons on farms, in ofifices, and in other departments of the 
world's work are using various forms of literature for intellectual recrea- 
tion — and almost in the strictly physiological sense of that term. Inci- 
dentally to this, these readers may grow steadily in certain kinds of vision, 
taste, largeness of social spirit. Probably it will be found that the 
majority do so, if their lives be followed from young manhood into the 
years when the burden of their* vocational and civic responsibilities is 
somewhat lessened. 

Others, possibly with more will or surplus energy, — among whom 
Theodore Roosevelt was certainly a chief, — very deliberately address 
themselves to specific and ordered tasks of self-cultivation. They not only 
read for "profit," — cultural, civic, even vocational, — but they build steadily 
toward higher levels. Sometimes literature is for them "an end in 
itself" ; but more frequently it is also a means toward the larger insight, 
appreciations, and service that appeal to them as being most worth 
while. 

(Is it, then, safe for educators to postulate two major and perhaps some- 
what mutually opposed "values" to be realized through study of litera- 
ture — the recreative, and the "spiritually upbuilding'\? Uncritical persons 
sometimes allege that both values can or should accrue from the same 
sources ; but this seems contradicted by general social experience, except 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 487 

in the case of men of extraordinary energy. Perhaps our schools should 
clarify and vitalize both ideals for their pupils, and point the ways to 
their continuing realization through some purposive division of time and 
labor. 

The recreative values of literature are much in evidence in modern 
life. Millions of men of active body and mind, working often to the 
point of nervous exhaustion, find rest and diversion in the pages of the 
Saturday Evening Post, Adventure, and scores of other similar journals. 
Perhaps the intellectual activities stimulated by such reading are com- 
parable to the physical activities inspired by golf, motoring, and fishing. 
These readers take little pride in their literary interests or achievements. 
Literary critics are, naturally perhaps, most contemptuous of them. But 
these interests are clearly among the most real and widespread of the 
products of education for literacy. How shall we evaluate them? What 
shall be a sane and constructive attitude of, say, high-school teachers of 
literature toward them? Perhaps we no more need to "teach" for these 
interests than we have to teach interests in the "movies" or in the eating 
of maple sugar. But that does not relieve educators of responsibihty 
for ascertaining where these "naturally acquired" interests in literary 
reading belong in the entire scheme of educational values. 

Nor can these educators afford to ignore the related physiological and 
hygienic consideraiions. We talk much, these days, about education for 
leisure and the values of recreation — physical, intellectual, social, and 
avocational. Recreations for men who draw heavily on their energies 
in work must not in turn constitute a heavy drain. Is the significance 
and justification of "light reading" to be found in that fact? 

The social or spiritual values of literature — vwhat are they as evidenced 
in the various societies about us? In what ways is the "educated" utilizer 
of literature a better man for his own purposes, or for the purposes of 
his fellows in family, party, church, and nation ? In what ways is the 
man of uneducated literary interest — in all or in some kinds of literature — 
"short" or defective in larger usefulness to himself, his associates or his 
federates?) These questions indicate the necessary starting points to any 
fundamental sociological inquiries into the "values" of literature. Ex- 
tensive research, guided especially by social psychology, will be necessary 
to their final elucidation ; but some important findings can, as stated above, 
be reached simply by interpreting our every-day experience. 

Let us not forget that many of the more enduring, as well as not a 
few of the more recently popular, of writers use their art largely as a 
means toward larger moral ends. Certainly Sophocles, Tasso, Dante, 



488 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Milton, Bunyan, Tennyson, Dickens, Whittier, Whitman, Olive Schreiner, 
Tolstoi, Kipling, Wells, Harold Bell Wright, and Shaw have done so. It 
is not easy to read their works for intellectual recreation alone. If we 
insist on keeping company with them, they will conscript our wills and 
sentiments in spite of ourselves. Many of these writers are, of course, 
not "meat for babes" — and perhaps it is vicious pedagogy to introduce 
babies in years or in minds to them. But the principles established by 
their work hold, probably, all down the line, if "high-brow" educators 
could but realize it. Many a Boy Scout story has its spiritual message 
to-day for at least some boys of fourteen. Girlhood's interest in the 
Alcott stories is not without significance to promoters of "spiritual" educa- 
tion. Literary connoisseurs may sneer when a first printing of a new 
novel by Harold Bell Wright runs off seven hundred thousand copies — 
but the social psychologist will find in that fact something profoundly 
hopeful. 

Some of the social values of great and difficult literature are, of course, 
made available for the world at large indirectly or at second hand — that 
is, through the popular writers and other interpreters afiFected. Just as 
the values of higher mathematics or colloidal chemistry are incalculably 
great, even though only a few men are able-minded enough to acquire 
and apply such knowledge, so the values of the creative thinking and 
writing of a Dante, Milton, Samuel Butler, Whitman, Hauptmann, 
Tagore, or Dreiser may be very great, notwithstanding the difficulties of 
popularizing his writings. The effects of these geniuses percolate down- 
ward through the intellectual leaders who are affected by them. 

This fact explains, in part, the undemocratic impatience of critical 
connoisseurs with "second-rate" and popular literature. They make the 
common mistake of assuming that what their gifted and sophisticated 
tastes find novel and stimulating can likewise be found so by the multitude. 
(These critics have always been, and must perhaps always be, bewildering 
if not harmfully misleading guides to educators responsible for providing 
studies and courses in a democratic system of education. \ 

LITERATURE AND LIFE 

"Literature interprets life'^ is a vague though much used generaliza- 
tion that greatly needs interpretation in the light of social psychology' 
Every epic, novel, story, poem, essay, and drama doubtless attempts' to 
interpret some phase of life, and that, first of all, in terms of the writer's 
prepossessions and ideals. The interpretation may be fundamental and 



ENGLISH LITERATURE - 489 

true, or superficial and false. It may be very significant in one age 
and for one people, and quite without interpretive value for another- 
people and time. "Human nature is always the same," it is said ; but 
practically this may express a misleading half-truth. In one sense the 
basic "nature" of the contemporary Arab may be similar to that of the 
Illinois farmer; but in terms of social behavior the two are widely dif- 
ferent, due to dissimilarities in tradition, culture, religion, and civic 
standards. 

Milton wrote his great poems in a social atmosphere and in relation 
to conditions that were widely different from those prevailing in an 
American commonwealth to-day. His poetry interprets at least part of 
life — that is, its aspirations, reactions, understandings — as he knew it. 
How significant are his interpretations for our times and social conditions ? 
His world knew little of modern science, transport, methods of war, or 
social ideals. It conceived politics, religion, and art very differently from 
ourselves. Even the affections and relations of the sexes, the most nearly 
universal theme of literature, differed then in many essential respects 
from the corresponding situations of the present. 

To what extent, then, and in what ways, can Milton's writings interpret 
our life to us to-day? It may help to interpret the life of a past epoch; 
but only persons with strong historical interests care much for the past. 
May not this fact explain in large measure the meagerness of contem- 
porary interest, other than historical, in Milton's works? They have 
little message for us, notwithstanding their artistic splendor. They do not 
interpret our problems for us — problems of the future life, of interna- 
tional relationships, of the social adjustment of contending economic 
forces, of the conservation and extension of democracy, or even of insur- 
ing better foundations for family life. They are like seventeenth-century 
furniture — interesting as antiques and as splendid examples of other- 
day workmanship, but not well adapted to present-day needs and estab- 
lished tastes. 

But there are many complicating factors. Small children, and perhaps 
not a few adults, take delightedly to tales and romances that are con- 
structed around the doings of fairies, dragons, glorious knights, entranc- 
ing princesses, and other unworldly creatures of some distant time or 
region. They find no incongruities in seven-league boots, supermen, and 
magic. The literatures of the heroic ages are filled with imaginings of 
these kinds that take no account of steam engines, telephones, printing 
presses, smokeless powders, canned foods, biological science, political 
democracy, or trade unions. Hudson's "Green Mansions" finds not a 



490 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

few entranced readers among the very practical workers of American 
cities. What part does such hterature play in the cultural nurture of a 
twentieth-century American people? 

Again, there are the exceptional minds to consider. Dante's Purgatory 
appeals to some, obviously, for reasons quite apart from the artistic 
technique of its structure or its historical setting. These readers, having 
had certain profounder philosophical curiosities aroused, find Dante's 
reflections suggestive and enlightening. But such interests, obviously, lie 
far outside the range of the intellectual interests of average men. 

Social psychology, then, strongly suggests that much of the literature 
that is to "interpret life" for men of the more common kind must do so 
largely through the medium of situations and conditions that are already 
understood and appreciated. |Hence the vogue of stories, novels, poetry, 
biographies, and the like, that "either speak the language of the every-day 
experience familiar to such men, or else interpret remote situations in 
terms of the simplest of human implements, emotions, and conceptions 
and problems.! 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE AS SCHOOL STUDIES 

The word "English" is a favorite one with makers of curricula. It 
often means "English language" and sometimes "English literature," but 
too frequently it designates a vague aad rather footless combination of 
both, especially in modern high schools. In these the same teacher is 
commonly employed to teach composition and other branches of the 
vernacular language, as well as the quasi-historical subject called English 
language. 

(Though our knowledge of the actual objectives that should control in 
the teaching of literature is yet obscure, nevertheless it is very certain 
that they are only slightly and remotely related to the objectives which 
should control in vernacular language training^., A very good case could 
be made out for the desirability of having persons of quite unlike tem- 
peramental and educatipnal qualities teach each of these two subjects in 
secondary schools. It ought to be expected that, in the very nature of 
the case, an enthusiastic and competent teacher of literature would be a 
reluctant and sorry trainer toward the specific proficiencies that make 
for good spoken and written English. Probably very many of the good 
or moderately good teachers of English language now in our high schools 
are teaching literature in serene obliviousness to the real cultural and 
social results that should be derived from it. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 491 

It will be urged, of course, that even if the objectives of the two types 
of studies are far removed from each other, nevertheless they should be 
taught in close correlation. Again the delusion of economy or effective- 
ness to be attained through some teamlike combination of dissimilars ! 
It is very doubtful whether close analysis of desirable and practicable 
objectives will show feasible openings for practicable correlation. Pro- 
nunciation must be improved chiefly in the realms of daily use. Certainly 
our pupils can not be expected to emulate the authors they read as respects 
qualities of literary expression. If they are to write sincerely and with 
force they can only express that which comes from their own intimate 
experience and reflection. 

Many problems of method will be encountered when objectives are 
once clearly established. It is predicted that then: 

a) It will be found that valid objectives of literature and of English 
are so far asunder as to negate the desirability of teaching them to any 
considerable extent in close correlation. 

b. It will be found highly desirable in junior and senior high schools 
to have different teachers of literature and of the English-language studies. 

c. Literature will only rarely be taught through the definite class organ- 
izations that are necessary for the usual "projective" studies. 

d. It will be found feasible to have a large portion of the "learning" 
of literature accomplished outside the school. 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bates, Arlo. Talks on the Teaching of Literature. 

Carpenter, Baker, and Scott. The Teaching of English (Ch. 3, (2) 
Literature in Secondary Schools). 

Chubb, P. The Teaching of English (Ch. 9, 10, Reading in the Gram- 
mar Grades; Ch. 13-16, Literature in High Schools). 

Corson, H. The Aims of Literary Study. 

Fairchild, a. H. R. The Teaching of Poetry in the High School (Ch. i, 
Introductory). 

Johnson, H. Teaching of History (Ch. 15, Correlation of History with 
Literature). 

King, I. The High School Age. 

Quiller-Couch, a. On the Art of Writing. 

Shedloch, M. L. The Art of the Story Teller (Part I, The Art of 
Story Telling). 



492 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Thomas, C. S. The Teaching of English (Ch. 7, General Principles Gov- 
erning Choice of Literary Selections ; Ch. 9, The Teaching of Prose 
Fiction; Ch. 12, The Problem of Outside Reading). 

Thorndike, a. H. Literature in a Changing Age (Ch. i, Changing 
Literature; Ch. 2, The Reading Public; Ch. 3, The Literary Inher- 
itance; Ch. 10, Beauty and Art). 

Welch^ J. S. Literature in the School. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES . 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

CERTAIN historical conditions have made the American people 
attach high values to the mathematical studies in schools of all 
grades. Settlement of the frontier has always brought before the common 
people many problems of boundaries, dimensions, and contents of land 
and timber. Pioneers are nearly always in some degree traders. New 
Englanders early became shipbuilders and navigators. Technical leader- 
ship has been much in demand by those developing our numerous corpora- 
tions. Always the poorly educated owners of mineral lands, live stock, 
timber, and unsurveyed lands were being victimized by the shrewd man 
of figures. 

Then, too, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry seem always to have 
corpbined two qualities which made them a precious stock in trade for 
the peripatetic master in rural school or academy : they were relatively 
easy for the initiated to teach ; and they were impressive, if not awe-inspir- 
ing, to the uninitiated. The tenets of the now discarded "faculty psychol- 
ogy" fitted in admirably with the feelings of mysticism which the powers 
of surveyors, navigators, double-entry bookkeepers, bill clerks, and other 
experts aroused in the breast of the poorly educated man. It was inevit- 
able that the "dogma of formal discipline" through mathematical studies 
should maintain a long ascendancy, especially in the minds of those self- 
approving, successful laymen who represented the public in governing the 
schools of the democracy. 

The mathematical studies have lately fallen somewhat from their former 
high estate as respects general prescription. No well informed person 
doubts their very great and increasing importance in modern civilized life. 
In the worlds of science, manufacture, transportation, mining, building, 
and commerce, applications of mathematics play roles analogous to skele- 
tons in the bodies of vertebrates. They preserve definite form and articu- 
lations of the various parts and functions. 

But education is now confronted by a wide range of problems as to 
desirable purposes and scope of mathematics teaching in the various 
schools. How much arithmetic is needed by all? For what purposes? 
How many and what kinds of people should be required or advised to 
study the several secondary school mathematical subjects as now standard- 
ized? The following questions will bring some of these problems into 
relief : 

493 



494 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

1. What applications do you recall having made within the last year of 
these phases of arithmetic : long division ; tables of square measure ; tables of 
troy weight; simple interest; division of decimals; true discount; cube root? 
Recall applications that you think were made by your associates. 

2. What is the usual extent and character of the arithmetical knowledge 
and abilities of exact performance frequently used by you or your associates 
in these connections: making change; calculating prices of goods bought or 
sold (assuming that you are not a merchant) ; reading daily papers; making 
investments; pursuing further studies? In what respects have you experi- 
enced shortages or defects in your arithmetical abilities recently? In what 
respects do you regret not having had more training in that field ? 

3. Assume that school curricula were so reorganized that all mathematics 
especially needed for vocational purposes — by engineers, bookkeepers, bank 
clerks, plumbers, farmers, lumber merchants, life-insurance salesmen, ele- 
mentary-school teachers, and the like — could and would be taught in the special 
vocational schools, or in elective prevocational courses, for these vocations; 
and that the purposes of general arithmetic and other general mathematics 
were only to provide for our common non-vocational needs, such as buying 
(for general utilization), reading, ° conversation, investing, and cultural ap- 
preciation of the world in which we find ourselves. What topics, and what 
difficult aspects of retained topics, could well be omitted from arithmetic as 
now usually taught in the first eight grades? What topics or phases should 
perhaps receive even greater emphasis than is now customary? 

4. Having in view the rank and file of persons, some of whom find it de- 
sirable to make investments in stocks and bonds, what kinds of knowledge 
should they have of these in order to invest wisely ? How much of this knowl- 
edge is primarily arithmeticalf How much arithmetical knowledge does the 
average person need for the ordinary requirements of buying life insurance, 
paying taxes, keeping a bank account, lending money? 

5. In a certain suburb, nearly all the children attend school at least to sixteen 
years of age. The parents of a considerable portion do not send children 
to school until eight years of age. Does it seem desirable that systematic 
arithmetic should be taught in first and second grades? 

6. Why should algebra, plane geometry, trigonometry, and solid geometry 
be studied by any high-school pupils? 

7. Why should algebra and geometry be prescribed for admission to engi- 
neering schools? To liberal arts colleges? To schools of law, theology, and 
medicine ? To normal schools for elementary-school teachers ? 

8. What seem to you to be the prevailing needs of (a) higher arithmetic, 
(&) algebra and geometry, and (c) trigonometry by these workers: dentists; 
artillery officers; dry-goods salesmen; live-stock farmers; real-estate agents; 
bank cashiers; architects; expert accountants; home-makers; stenographers 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 495 

(girl); teachers of modern languages; electrical engineers; oculists; hotel 
cooks; carpenters? 

9. What are the prevailing needs of mathematics for the following college 
studies as ordinarily organized in "liberal arts" courses : English literature^ 
Spanish, chemistry, home economics, economics, ancient history, English his- 
tory, physics? 

10. Why should girls be required to study algebra? What vocations do 
they enter in any considerable numbers in which algebra demonstrably func- 
tions? Does it appear ever to "function" in such vocations as those of nurse, 
stenographer, waitress, elementary-school teacher, home-maker, saleswoman? 

11. What can you formulate as possible "cultural objectives" of the study 
of algebra or of plane geometry ? Do persons of high-school education seem 
to you to possess, at thirty years of age, "appreciations" of the parts played 
in modern life and achievement by mathematics substantially superior to those 
possessed by persons of equal native ability, but without secondary-school 
training? 

12. "Hard work" on problems of algebra and plane geometry contributes, it 
is often alleged, in important measure to mental discipline or mental training. 
Endeavor to formulate out of your own experience the factors in this con- 
tention. Does such study seem to have "taught you to think" ? To think 
about the closely related mathematical facts, or about all kinds of facts — 
historic, literary, domestic, spiritual ? 

Have you ever tried to apply your "reasoning powers" to the study of fine 
art of any kind, psychology, or biology? Has it seemed that the "reasoning 
powers" trained in the study of algebra and geometry have helped you here ? 

13. Would you be in favor of leaving algebra and plane geometry (as the 
subjects are now standardized in college entrance requirements) on a purely 
elective basis, with the stipulation that any student planning to enter the engi- 
neering vocations should be required to pass exacting tests in these subjects 
before beginning study of engineering? 

14. A number of recent writers have prepared texts, adapted to eighth or 
ninth grades, containing the simpler and more practical topics of algebra, 
geometry, advanced arithmetic, and even topics from other departments of 
mathematics. Does it seem expedient or desirable that such a subject should 
be "prescribed" for all? What are other subjects that will probably have 
to be omitted if that is done? 

VALUES OF ARITHMETIC 

Elementary arithmetic clearly ranks with reading and writing as 
among the most valuable and necessary tools of civilized society. When 
European and American frontier society was emerging from illiteracy, it 
was inevitable that a tremendous premium should be placed on arithmetic. 



496 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Certain phases of it were almost indispensable in all forms of buying and 
selling. 

Discussion of the question, "Why should arithmetic be taught?" is, for 
obvious reasons, quite fruitless until we shall have defined the scope and 
content of the subject. Even then we shall find ourselves forced to treat 
of specific topics and cases. No educator would dispute the advisability of 
requiring all normal, and a large proportion of abnormal, pupils in our 
schools to learn the "essentials" of arithmetic. But what are these "essen- 
tials"? Do they include compound interest, cube root, apothecaries' 
measure, the principles of "alligation alternate," the metric system of 
square measure, the "inverted" problems of profit and loss, the processes 
of finding largest common divisors when these include large prime factors, 
and the methods of computing volumes of cylinders ? Should they include 
probable vocational needs (always specialized), or only those "general" 
needs experienced by all, quite apart from vocation to be followed ? 

That the objectives of arithmetic formerly held (and even yet by the 
majority of conservative educators) were fundamentally absurd is becom- 
ing slowly manifest to the more inquiring educators of our time. Those 
objectives are implicit in textbooks and examination questions for prospec- 
tive teachers or for promotion in the grades. Some future historian oi 
education will find it a fascinating theme to discover how, in the evolution 
of literacy and of commercial proficiency in this country under social 
conditions always influenced by the frontier and often by the sea, topic 
after" topic has been added to the body of "arithmetic." Until recent 
years, addition and not subtraction was the process by which the subject 
was built up. The pedantic ingenuity of schoolmasters reinforced the de- 
mands of practical men toward the complication of common topics by 
means of abstract and unreal "problems." 

Such a historian will find many causes for the evolution of arithmetic 
as that subject had become shaped during the last twenty-five years of 
the nineteenth century. Since straight "verbal memorizing" has been 
pedagogically discounted as a method of learning, arithmetic has probably 
been the easiest subject' in which half -competent teachers have been able 
to procure the semblance of good "work." 

Arithmetic serves two very unlike purposes in society. Certain portions 
of the very extensive body of technical knowledge and practical skills 
making up the subject are largely functional in the daily utilizing life of 
all of us. Hardly a day goes by but that we must make change, compute 
time between two dates, or calculate the total price of an article, the 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 497 

value of which is expressed in terms of units. Very frequently we use 
our knowledge of a few simple denominate numbers, or make simple calcu- 
lations on a percentage basis. These common operations call for quick 
and sure applications of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and, usually, 
for only the very simplest of fractions and decimals. In reading we occa- 
sionally encounter numbers expressed in Roman notation. 

Consumers' arithmetic — as used by all adults and even by many chil- 
dren in all their utilising processes, such as buying, reading, appreciative 
understanding of conversation, estimating quantitative conditions about 
them, simple investment, and minor transmissions of money — is, obviously, 
the universal arithmetic that determines the proper aims of general educa- 
tion in that field. 

Vocational aritlimetic also plays a very large part in the world's life 
and work. But, obviously, it has always been specialized, and it tends 
year by year to become more specialized. Certain kinds of inerrant 
ability in adding, subtracting and multiplying we associate with the book- 
keepers' vocation (or did before the use of calculating machines became 
general). But only one person in perhaps a thousand follows bookkeeping 
as a vocation. Similarly, it seems obvious that the plumber and steamfitter 
very much need certain kinds of arithmetic that may well be "Greek" to 
the rest of us. The machinist, the building contractor, the lumber mer- 
chant, the note teller in a bank, the electrician, the navigator, the well- 
driller, the compositor, the bookbinder, the jeweler, the pharmacist — all 
of these have, certainly, their indispensable needs of some very specialized 
forms of mathematics — often of arithmetic only. 

Our forefathers naturally thought that the "school" should prepare their 
pupils as far as practicable for any possible vocation — -at least, it seemed 
practicable to do this in so bookish and compact a subject as arithmetic. 
So they piled into the advanced textbooks in that subject the special forms 
of arithmetic supposedly needed by sea captain, ^old-buyer, drug-com- 
pounder, wall-paper man, hay merchant, discount clerk, tea-blender, brick- 
layer, and stock broker. These forms of arithmetic were all very valuable — 
none could dispute that; therefore they were valuable for all — was not 
that an easy inference to make in a democracy? Hence our dismally over- 
loaded general arithmetic. 

Mental arithmetic suffered the same fate. The most generally used 
arithmetic is, of course, non-written. Accuracy and speed in several kinds 
of non-written operation are, obviously, valuable components of consumers' 
arithmetic. But it became easy for mathematically ambitious school board 



498 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

members and teachers to make a hobby of mental calculations of all sorts, 
and then to impose the subject upon their pupils, in the faith that it was 
good mental discipline. 

The objectives of arithmetic, desirable and feasible for general educa- 
tion, remain yet to be defined and delimited, in spite of much progress 
recently made in disposing of the accumulations of the last three genera- 
tions. Sociological foundations of proper standards are not yet clearly 
in evidence. Studies have been made which show the topics and phases 
of topics in most general use among adults ; but these do not yet make 
satisfactory discrimination between consumers' and producers' needs. It 
is here held that the elementary school should, at least in the first six 
grades, not concern itself at all with producers' needs for vocational arith- 
metic. 

The desirable specific objectives of arithmetic are to be studied, first 
of all, through analysis of needs of adults as utilizers. Even now it would 
be readily practicable, given necessary resources, to obtain fairly scientific 
solutions to such problems as these: 

PROBLEMS 

What are the kinds, and of each the usual scope, of mathematics 
sufficient to meet in reasonable degree the needs of these utilizers? A. 
Men and women living in New York City, traveling to Europe once in 
ten years ; income per family group at the rate of five to ten thousand 
dollars a year; they are general readers of daily newspapers and best 
magazines ; they buy bonds or stocks and take out life and other insurance 
only on advice of brokers. B. Wage-earning artisan workers ; income per 
family group, fifteen to twenty-five hundred dollars ; investments made 
usually in savings banks ; read ordinary newspapers, but few books ; have 
difficulty in understanding economic political questions, but not necessarily 
due to lack of mathematical abilities. 

These problems could readily be investigated through a systematic study 
of the utilizing activities of a few cases selected at random from within 
each group to be studied. 

Shortages or defects in consumers' mathematics, as at present mas- 
•tered, could be studied in the same way. What are these shortages of 
which individuals are conscious? What are shortages which they do not 
appreciate, but which students can discern, that impair their usefulness 
to themselves or to society? It is possible to study some of these short- 
ages in particular respects. For example, assuming that large proportions 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 499 

of the readers of a given journal could readily interpret graphs of simple 
kinds, would such a journal materially increase its use of such graphs, and 
to the advantage of its readers ? Again, assuming that investors possessed 
fairly large command over the mathematics of insurance, bonds, partial 
payments, and commissions, would it considerably improve their abilities 
as investors? 

VOCATIONAL MATHEMATICS 

Specialized applications of mathematics, as noted above, constitute 
essential portions of the technical knowledge of many vocations. Elec- 
trical engineering, bookkeeping, pharmacy, lumber merchandising, ship 
navigation, house-building, electric wiring, machine-shop practice, book- 
binding, surveying, and some others are vocations in which it is relatively 
easy to define the kinds and scope of applications of mathematics com- 
monly made. It would appear that special applications are rare or largely 
unknown in the vocation's of street-car motorman, minister, high-school 
teacher of Spanish, cigarmaker, cook, actor, sailor, gardener, and hundreds 
of other professional and non-professional callings. 

Farming, home-making, and several other composite vocations require 
some technical mathematics, but whether the amounts so needed extend 
much beyond the limits of consumers' mathematics has not yet been clearly 
ascertained. It has previously been shown that all consumers need to 
know the simple mathematics of number reading (Arabic and Roman), 
addition, subtraction, and multiplication of whole numbers, the simplest 
operations with fractions and decimals, and the rest. To what extent 
would such knowledge prove insufficient for the usual needs of the home- 
makers of rich or poor, urban or rural, homes ? 

ALGEBRA, PLANE GEOMETRY, TRIGONOMETRY, AND SOLID GEOMETRY^ 

Two, at least, of these subjects have for many years claimed the lion's 
share of the "hard work" of our high-school pupils. Algebra and geometry 
are still prescribed for admission to virtually all American colleges, normal 
schools, and other higher institutions. Until very recently the educational 
values of these two members of the mathematical studies have not been 
questioned. It has long been evident to Americans that they were indis- 
pensable as tools in the engineering professions. The easy inference that 

^ See also D. Snedden, Sociological Determination of Objectives (Ch. 6, The 
Objectives of Mathematics). 



500 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

they were of some value also in the other higher pursuits has been easy. 
Nevertheless the vogue of the studies in our secondary schools has been 
due chiefly to the doctrine of mental discipline that has so long served 
as a defense of courses having inadequate or esoteric objectives. 

The time is now ripe for a reexamination of these alleged values, par- 
ticularly those of algebra and plane geometry. It should, in the first place, 
be an easy matter to determine the scope and character of probable voca- 
tional needs (including those of professional studies) for these subjects. 
It should furthermore be an easy matter to determine how far study of 
these subjects by methods now prevalent in our schools contributes to the 
realization of cultural objectives as these may be properly analyzed and 
defined. Present psychological theory and demonstration may not give 
us entirely satisfactory grounds for establishing the limits of their dis- 
ciplinary values ; but it is sufficient to enable us to view with much skep- 
ticism dogmatic valuations and practices entailing the prescriptive and 
enforced study of them. Many educators are now quite ready to place 
both algebra and plane geometry in the list of purely elective subjects for 
school and college, always with the reservation that they be prescribed for 
candidates seeking admission to those professional schools in which they 
demonstrably serve as necessary tools. 

MATHEMATICS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS 

Many of the problems of the place of mathematics in that enlarged 
system of secondary education which includes schools of general and of 
vocational education for substantially all pupils from twelve to eighteen 
years of age can be brought into sharp relief by considering the problems 
of objectives now confronting the junior high school. 

The junior high-school type of educational organization is steadily 
winning its way administratively. But pedagogically it seems to be 
making little progress. Thus far its curricula show no very significant 
changes from the curricula of the schools or grades which it has super- 
seded. 

The difficulties encountered in modifying the traditional subjects, 
courses, and curricula of seventh, eighth, and ninth grades are due largely 
to prevailing uncertainties as to educational aims. We have, as yet, few 
clear conceptions as to what we should seek to do, educationally, for all 
upper-grade children in common, or for the various groups into which 
they can readily be divided. 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 501 

The historic elementary-school type of organization of courses for 
pupils from twelve to fifteen years of age rendered flexibility of curricula 
impracticable, if not impossible. The slow and the fast, the mechanically 
inclined and the mechanically stupid, had all to pass through the same mill. 
Theoretically, courses in mathematics, as in other subjects for these ages, 
were shaped to meet the needs and fit the powers of the average pupil. 
Practically, that ideal was very rarely realized to any considerable degree, 
Poorly informed theorists in fields of social need and child psychology — • 
including, primarily, ambitious text book makers, but also large numbers 
of sea captains, merchants, engineers, contractors, lumbermen, and suc- 
cessful farmers who exercised strong influence on school boards — usually 
dictated the topics and problems that were to be regarded as "approved" 
arithmetic. 

The resulting courses and methods are well exhibited by the textbooks 
in mental and written arithmetic widely used in this country from 1830 
to 1900. As pedagogical products these were certainly grotesque and 
tragic in many respects. Fortunately for the consciences of both the 
victims and the perpetrators of these outrages, there prevailed during that 
era two ideas, having virtually the force of educational dogmas, which 
justified in their own minds the educational hierarchy of those days. The 
first was that upper-grade schooling was only for the intellectually elect, 
in any case; and the second was that the precious asset of the "trained 
mind" was best realized through mathematical topics, and especially 
problems, which in their tortuous complexities went far beyond the 
realistic situations appearing in every-day life. All of the arithmetic 
offered was, of course, interesting to some minds. A small percentage 
of persons are so endowed mentally that they take the same delight in 
wrestling" with the fictitious problems of mental arithmetic, geometry, 
chess, puzzles, and the authorship of Shakespeare's dramas that others 
take in hunting or in the competitions of athletics. But the satisfaction 
of the interests of this minority was poor compensation to the millions 
of youths of average abilities and pressing needs who wrestled away 
precious time and energy on non-functional arithmetic. 

The gradual but certain substitution of the junior high-school type of 
organization for all pupils between twelve and fourteen or fifteen years 
of age is destined to work revolutions in uniform and prescribed curricula. 
Just as the older type of organization virtually compelled blind uniformity 
in offerings, and automatically frustrated all serious attempts at adaptation 
of courses to varying needs and powers, so the new type of organization 



502 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



will almost certainly bring into unescapable relief the widely variant con- 
ditions affecting educational potentialities which are always to be found 
among considerable groups of learners compelled or electing to attend 
school between the ages of twelve and fifteen. With regard to any possible 
offering we shall find ourselves increasingly obligated to answer the ques- 
tions : Is it very desirable for group A? For Group B? Is it of more 
importance to group C than something else to which these learners could 
devote their available time and energy. 

Several conditions of comparatively recent evolution will help develop, 
if not render necessary, the flexibility here referred to. The last quarter 
of a century has been prolific in the development and formulation of new 
and valuable subjects of school instruction. For pupils from twelve to 
fifteen years of age there are still available such historic subjects as 
arithmetic, grammar, written composition, geography, and American his- 
tory. But, in addition, a wealth of material of very great educational 
value to at least some pupils, and through them to society at large, has 
been organized in such fields as literature, current events, industrial 
arts, bookkeeping, general science, physical training, hygiene, graphic 
arts (execution and appreciation), music, household arts, gardening, 
word analysis, oral composition, modern language, Latin, algebra, con- 
structional geometry, mental science ("how to study"),' community civics, 
civil government, scouting, school self-government, typewriting, and 
others. 

Again, all children between twelve and fourteen are now required, or 
soon will be required, to attend school. In the "good old days" large 
proportions of the children of these ages who had lost interest in school, 
or who were mentally slow or morally difficult, were either allowed silently 
to fold their tents and steal away, or else they were no less quietly "elbowed 
out" of school life. Now we have them all with us ; and since the mountain 
of their abilities (or deficiencies) will not come to the Mohammeds of 
uniform school standards, these standards must go to them. That change 
of front spells more kinds of curriculum flexibility than we have yet 
dreamed of. 

In the third place, modern psychology gives scientific formulation to 
what has always been empirically surmised as to the very great variabilities 
in native powers and potentialities of the children of men. The psychol- 
ogists are now laying one set of foundations for the scientifically flexible 
school offerings of the future; the sociologists, interpreting social needs, 
may be expected to build the other foundations. 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 503 



GENERAL AIMS 

As a background for discussion, let us assume the existence, in an 
educationally progressive city of from two to three hundred thousand 
population, of a large, well equipped, and well staffed junior high school 
accommodating sixteen hundred pupils, all of whom have completed the 
sixth grade. (Retarded pupils over twelve years of age will probably 
also be found here, but will be assigned to special classes in mathematics, 
and need not, therefore, be considered here.) Only grades 7 and 8 are 
provided for in this school. Full-time attendance is assumed to be obli- 
gatory to the fourteenth birthday. 

School authorities are confronted by the problems of making and admin- 
istering curricula for this school. They find that the partizans of many 
"subjects" are desirous that their respective favorite studies shall not^only 
be given prominent place in the curricula, but shall, if at all practicable, 
be required of all pupils. It seems generally agreed that all pupils 
should be required, in both seventh and eighth grades, to give substantial 
amounts of time to the various branches of oral and of written English, 
English literature, American history, civics, geography, and hygiene. It is 
also agreed that acceptable pupils should be permitted and, as far as prac- 
ticable, advised to elect Latin, a modern language, English grammar, 
industrial arts, manual training, gardening, household arts, drawing, 
ancient history, physical training (sports or scouting), vocational guidance, 
current events, bookkeeping, word analysis, and others. 

In the field of mathematics (including all phases of arithmetic) the 
authorities find that if they assume the arithmetic prescribed for grades 3 
to 6 to have been well taught according to standards of aim and method 
now found in the better American urban elementary schools, these will 
be among the unanswered questions as to junior high school offerings : 

a. What courses in mathematics is it practicable to offer in the curricula 
of large junior high schools ? 

b. Should all pupils be required to take in common certain courses or 
portions of mathematics? 

c. Should all be required to take specified minimum amounts of mathe- 
matics, choosing, under advice, from the various courses offered ? 

d. Should all mathematics courses be placed in a list of electives, to the 
end that pupils may, with the approval of their parents, and aided by 
competent educational advice, choose to take much, little, or no work in 



504 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

this field, provided their programs are properly complete with other valu- 
able studies? 

e. Should certain pupils be debarred from specified courses ? 

CASE-GROUPS INVOLVED 

First consideration must be given to some of the "case-groups" involved, 
primarily as a means of estimating educational needs and values rather 
than of adjusting individuals. The method is analogous to study of the 
problems of "applied" chemistry in laboratory stages rather than on com- 
mercial scales. 

The "case-group" method of approach to the study of desirable educa- 
tional objectives and of comparative educational values in mathematics 
presents many difficulties and some obvious uncertainties. But are there 
any alternative methods ? Deductive and a priori reasoning have certainly 
had their many days in court in the making of curricula. Educators still 
talk about that hopeless abstraction "the child" or "the junior high school 
pupil." They say, "Should not a boy learn to find unknowns by means 
of right triangles?" What kind of boy — blind or sighted, white or colored, 
weak-minded or strong-minded, one who will probably be a farmer, or one 
who will probably work in the learned professions? 

Profitable consideration, then, of these problems of prescribed vs. 
elective mathematics requires that conditions of the needs of society, the 
personal needs of learners, and the probable opportunities of these, be 
given as concrete analysis and description as practicable. 

It is safe to assume that, among the eight hundred boys and eight 
hundred girls in the seventh and eighth grades of this junior high school : 

a. A minority are of inferior intelligence or native ability, another 
minority are of superior rank in these respects, and that a majority range 
from somewhat above to somewhat below the average or mode of the 
intelligence standard employed. 

b. A minority come from inferior family and social surroundings, an- 
other minority from superior surroundings, and a majority represent 
"modal" social environment. 

c. A minority will leave school about as soon as the law permits, another 
minority will go through to graduation from high school, and a majority 
will probably leave between the ages of fifteen and seventeen with from a 
seventh- to a ninth-grade school education. 

These various minorities and majorities have probably some educational 
needs in common; but surely they also have many needs that are special 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 505 

to classes rather than general to all, when their own or their society's best 
interests are consulted. 

It is sociologically desirable and practicable to study this school popula- 
tion under several "case-group" classifications. Of the children who are 
below the average in ability, some come from poor and crowded homes, 
some from homes with ample resources. Experience shows that nearly 
all children of the first group leave school soon after the fourteenth birth- 
day and become largely self-supporting. Children of the second group 
remain several years in school and may not have to become self-supporting 
until they are past twenty years of age. Out of all the studies, mathe- 
matical and non-mathematical, that can be offered in seventh and eighth 
grades, what 30 per cent, (all that their time and learning abilities permit 
them to take) are "best" for these groups — that is, have for them the 
maximum of "educational value" ? 

Among the sixteen hundred pupils there will probably be one hundred 
boys of good to excellent mental power, and backed by prosperous, am- 
bitious parents. They will nearly all go to college. Another hundred 
boys of no less ability will come from homes that can contribute little or 
nothing toward their support during attendance on high school, to say 
nothing of the greater expenses of college. What curricula of courses 
should be recommended to each of these groups? 

COMPARATIVE VALUES 

It is safe to assume that each of the studies named earlier would 
possess some educational value for all kinds of pupils, if there were no 
competing studies of superior worth to which available time and learning 
energy should be given. No reasonable person could object to having 
all these pupils study or practise some Latin, French, algebra, manual 
training, vocal music, or scouting, if the only other available studies left 
ample time and energy for these. 

But the actual situation in the contemporary junior high school is far 
otherwise. Time is available, on the part of any learner, for only a 
minority of these studies, if to each is allotted what experience indicates 
as a reasonable "content." Assuming an 8-hour school day and a 200-day 
school year, junior high school students have at their disposal during two 
years only 3200 hours, of which certainly not more than 2200 hours can 
be given to "academic" studies as distinguished from shop work and sports. 
The serious problem before us, then, is that of the relative values of 
subjects. "What knowledge is most worth?" to revive Spencer's famous 



5o6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

query. If choices must be made by individual pupils between such pairs 
as French or algebra ; vocal music or advanced arithmetic ; industrial arts 
or commercial arithmetic ; drawing or one year of composite mathe- 
matics — what shall be advised or required? Like the offerings in the 
menu of a modern hotel, all the offerings of the up-to-date junior high 
school may be good; but no one needs, or can find it practicable, to take 
them all. But what is best for one type of learner may be far from 
best for another. In view of the wide differences among various groups 
of pupils, common sense suggests that there should be wide differences in 
offerings. 

What kinds of mathematical courses could, if desirable, be taken by 
at least some of the pupils here under consideration; or what kinds of 
courses could be advantageously offered by the school? 'Experience to 
date suggests the following as practicable in any large junior high school : 

a. An advanced, fairly "stiff" two years' course in arithmetic of the 
type that has been largely traditional heretofore, in seventh and eighth 
grades. 

b. The more able-minded pupils certainly could take "pure" algebra 
and plane geometry, slightly simplified from the standards now commonly 
held for these subjects in ninth and tenth grades. 

c. A one year's course in "constructive" geometry is feasible. 

d. A one or two years' course in "composite" mathematics (blending 
the methods of arithmetic, geometry, algebra, in their application to 
relatively general and realistic problems of practical life) is certainly to 
be deemed practicable in the light of recent studies and texts. 

e. A one year's course (or even a two years' course) in "commercial" 
arithmetic (or mathematics), centering largely in the problems arising 
in the business transactions of buying, selling, and accounting. 

/. A one year's course, centering largely in problems peculiar to general 
farming. 

g. A one year's course, centering largely in problems peculiar to home- 
making. 

h. A one or two years' course, centering largely in problems peculiar 
to mechanical shops and the building trades. 

i. Though no good examples yet exist, it is theoretically possible to 
work out a substantial one year's course in almost pure "utilizer's" mathe- 
matics beyond the standards achieved in the first six grades, topics being 
restricted to those based on the common needs of large numbers of men 
and women in buying, reading, and modest investment. 

j. It is also theoretically possible to provide one or more courses in 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 507 

pure "appreciational mathematics" of a liberal or cultural nature, just as 
it is possible to have "appreciational" courses in poetry, music, general 
science, or drama. Historical materials might play a part here, as they 
do in appreciational courses in music, fiction, or graphic art — but surely 
only a minor part. True appreciation should center primarily in vital 
contemporary achievements; historical beginnings may be somewhat 
illuminating, but that is all. 

k. Finally, it is practicable to offer, in "short unit" or other 'form, 
courses in "review" arithmetic, designed primarily to keep in vital and 
functioning form over the "forgetting" years of childhood the "utilizers' " 
and fundamental arithmetic learned in the first six grades. 

All of these courses in mathematics are certainly good for society; 
that is, it is important to our composite social well-being that some learners, 
at least, shall learn well the kinds of knowledge and practice indicated. 
Each one of these courses is very good, perhaps the best possible, for 
certain types of pupils. Equally, each one of these courses would be 
relatively unserviceable, if not a positive waste of time, for certain other 
types of pupils. Perhaps, in view of possible alternatives, it would be 
educationally wicked to force the less fortunate pupils of the school (in 
brains and parental resources) to spend any time on some of them. How 
shall problems of "optimum adaptations" be approached? Let us return 
to the "case-group" method of inquiry. 

ONE TYPE OF NEED 

Among the eight hundred girls between twelve and fourteen years of 
age in any junior high school of the kind here under consideration, there 
will probably be found from fifty to one hundred and fifty who do not 
vary greatly as respects these characteristics : they .are below the median 
intelligence of girls of their age; and their home environment is below 
the average as respects most of the qualities that make for thrift, aspiring 
citizenship, fine (rather than high) standards, of living and companion- 
ship, and interest in personal advancement. 

Because of the conditions noted, these girls will, with rare exceptions, 
be but slightly interested in school work. Some will be slangy and bold, 
others taciturn and furtive. All will be greatly interested in showy 
clothes, street parade, "fellows," and the "movies." Perhaps half are 
rapidly developing interest in cheap reading. 

It is practicable to predict with substantial accuracy the futures of these 
girls. They are all eager to earn money and to get somewhat away from 



5o8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the boredom of their uninteresting schools and cramped homes. They will 
leave school almost as soon as the law permits, and enter upon the 
hundreds of varieties of wage-earning work which all modern cities offer 
in abundance to their nimble fingers and ready submissiveness. Most of 
them will be wage-earners in cigarette factories, box-making establish- 
ments, ten-cent stores, laundries, restaurants, and the like, between the 
ages of fifteen and twenty, after which the rate of marriage among them 
will be large. Before they reach the age of twenty-five, more than 80 
per cent, will have married — in nearly all cases young manual working- 
men who may expect to have a hard struggle to support families. 

A large proportion of these girls will, as young wives, be ill prepared 
for home-making responsibilities, partly because their mothers gave them 
little training during school years, and partly because they were in effect 
only boarders in their own homes during their wage-earning years. 
They will have fairly large families of children, whom they will rear 
under adverse conditions of housing, permanent residence, and cultural 
surroundings. 

Neither as girls nor as women will the case-group here considered be 
interested or competent in "politics," unless their schooling is made very 
different from what it now is. Many will vote, but only as led. by plausible 
candidates and popular prejudices. 

If we were making a curriculum only for these girls in the junior high 
school seventh and eighth grades, what should we (c) prescribe, and (b) 
advise, and (c) prohibit, out of all studies and other educational activities 
now known to be practicable for junior high schools ? They have left for 
schooling only thirty-two hundred hours at most. The school is clearly 
under obligations to do its utmost for them in a "compensatory" way — 
that is, to correct defects of grammar, morals, civic ideals, thrift, and the 
like, due to their environment or inferior abilities. 

Certainly no competent educational authorities will propose that these 
girls be required, or even advised, to study algebra. Could they make any 
use of partial payments, compound interest, cube root? Is constructive 
geometry important for them? To what extent is it desirable that they 
study graphical methods of representing and comparing quantities ? What 
should they, what can they, ever know of the equation ? 

Take another fairly well defined "case-group," consisting usually, in a 
school of this size, of from fifty to one hundred and fifty boys who combine 
these two assets : they are from prosperous, often cultivated homes ; and 
they are substantially above the average in intelligence. A very large pro- 
portion will have the time, the means, and the desire to enter higher institu- 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 509 

tions of learning. They will not need to become self-supporting until some 
time after attaining their majority. In later life they will probably work 
so hard as seriously to impair their health. Practically all will become 
good, conforming citizens, and many will develop large potentialities for 
dynamic or initiatory civic activities, if sufficient will and understanding 
thereto can be developed. 

What mathematical courses should be planned for, and recommended 
to, these boys? Probably either the "straight" algebra and geometry or a 
thoroughly stifif composite course. While no one can now predict that 
all of these boys will later take up higher studies or vocations requiring 
such mathematics, they can at least be advised that such election will be 
a good gamble, even after the colleges shall have ceased to worship the 
idols of obsolete psychological traditions in their admission requirements. 

But, while we should recommend to these prospective collegians the 
taking of preparatory mathematics, we should steadfastly resist the super- 
stitions of college entrance committees that these subjects possess such 
magic virtues as justify their prescription for admission to all colleges or 
college departments. There are many professions to-day that employ appli- 
cations of mathematics above arithmetic in only slight degree, and then 
only in such specialized forms that it is probably both feasible and 
economical to teach the necessary procedures when met with, rather than 
earlier. Some of the boys of the case-group under discussion will later 
study theology; others will prepare to practise law; a few will desire to 
become teachers of ancient or modern languages; possibly two or three 
will devote themselves to the graphic arts or music. Would realistic "job 
analysis" studies show that in these callings any considerable need will 
be encountered for the use of applications of algebra or geometry? One 
can, of course, easily adduce rare instances where theologians have wished 
to employ mathematical analogies, or where lawyers have foolishly pre- 
ferred to rely upon their own knowledge of equations, imperfect at best, 
in trying cases involving patents, or titles to mining land, instead of 
seeking the aid of specialists in these things — as they certainly would in 
matters involving toxicology, bacteriology, or chemistry. But such cases 
are rare exceptions. 

CONCLUSIONS 

1. The pupils attending any junior high school represent wide ranges 
of abilities, conditions, and educational needs. 

2. The possible educational ofiferings of such a school are steadily 



5IO EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

increasing in number and variety. None of these are equally necessary 
or valuable for all pupils. Each one is probably very valuable and im- 
portant for some pupils. The junior high school may be expected to 
repeat the history of the liberal arts college and the senior high school as 
respects the range of. subjects that may profitably be offered. Under these 
conditions, obviously, the responsibility of the school in recommending, 
prescribing, or prohibiting to each distinctive group of learners certain 
studies becomes very great. 

3. It is practicable and probably desirable to offer in the large junior 
high school a variety of mathematical courses — perhaps not fewer than 
eight nor more than twenty distinctive one-year courses. 

4. If proper attention has been given to essential "utilizers' arithmetic" 
in the first six grades, it is submitted that careful study of the most urgent 
educational needs of the various case-groups will prove that there is no 
mathematical topic or course that need thereafter be prescribed for all 
pupils alike. 

5. Subject to the one condition stated below, it is probable that careful 
analysis of the educational values of the large variety of different subjects 
that can and should be offered in the junior high school, as these minister 
to the respective educational needs of various case-groups, will establish 
the inadvisability of prescribing certain quantities of mathematical study, 
of one kind or another, for all pupils; provided that pupils of less than 
average ability shall, in response to tests given from time to time, demon- 
strate that their "utilizers' " mathematical knowledge learned in the first 
six grades remains actively "functional." 

6. All mathematics courses in the junior high school should, therefore, 
be placed in an elective list from which individual pupils should be 
advised and helped, with the consent of parents, to select those that will 
most probably meet their personal and social needs. 

7. Where courses are especially designed for pupils of superior abilities, 

it is, of course, legitimate to bar from them pupils of less than the required 

abilities. 

♦ 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Evans, G. W. The Teaching of High School Mathematics. 

Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 18, The Pedagogy of Mathe- 
matics). 

Inglis, a. Principles of Secondary Education (Ch. 14, The Place of 
Mathematics). 



THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES 511 

Jessup and Coffman. The Supervision of Arithmetic (Ch. i, Subject 

Matter of Arithmetic). 
JuDD, C. H. The Psychology of High School Subjects (Ch. 2-6). 
Klapper, p. The Teaching of Arithmetic (Ch, i, The Values of Arith- 
metic). 
RuGG and Clark. The Scientific Method in the Reconstruction of Ninth 

Grade Mathematics (Ch. i, Ninth Grade Mathematics on Trial). 
ScHULTZE_, A. The Teaching of Mathematics in Secondary Schools (Ch. 

2, The Value and the Aim of Mathematical Teaching). 
Smith, D. E. The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics (Ch. 7 and 10). 
Smith, D. E. The Teaching of Geometry (Ch. i, Certain Questions Now 

at Issue; Ch. 2, Why Geometry Is Studied). 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 18, The Aims and 

Values of Mathematics). 
Stone, J. C. The Teaching of Arithmetic (Ch. 2, The Aim of a Course 

in Arithmetic). 
Suzzalo, H. The Teaching of Primary Arithmetic (Ch. 2, The Influence 

of Aims). 
Thorndike, E. L. The Psychology of Arithmetic. 
Young, J. W. A. The Teaching of Mathematics (Ch. 2, The Purpose 

and Value of Mathematics in Secondary Schools). 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 
• THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 

THERE are literally scores of sciences from which schools, from the 
kindergarten through the university, must increasingly draw the 
materials or means of liberal and vocational education. For purposes of 
this book these sciences will be grouped in three principal divisions — the 
natural, the mental, and the social sciences. 

Pedagogical literature exhibits much confusion at present as to why, 
when, and where "sciences" should or can be taught. A part of the 
difficulty grows out of technical controversies as to what is "scientific" 
and what is "a science." In view of the prodigious developments of scien- 
tific knowledge now taking place in almost all the natural, mental, and 
social sciences, educators would probably be well advised if they would 
cut the Gordian knot by disclaiming, on the one hand, any intention of 
teaching "a science" below the university graduate or professional school ; 
and, on the other, by asserting their readiness and determination to teach 
young people anywhere between the ages of four and twenty-five, or be- 
yond, those things taken from science that it proves practicable and profit- 
able — in cultural, health-conserving, and civic senses, as well as vocational — 
for these persons to learn in any manner or degree. 

Children of six can readily and advantageously be taught some things 
from astronomy, zoology, bacteriology, and chemistry. Children of eight 
or nine can not be taught "economics" or "physiography" — perhaps these 
"subjects" are difficult enough for college juniors ; but it is a simple matter 
to teach them certain essentials from these scientific fields. It would be 
folly to try to teach average young people at thirteen years of age those 
logically organized bodjes of scientific knowledge called social psychology 
and educational psychology ; but few well informed educators doubt that 
within a few years we shall be making important use of "takings" from 
these sciences in the general education of such learners. 

Let it be understood, then, that even when such words as chemistry, 
botany, economics, and psychology are used in this book, it is never implied 
that these subjects can or should be taught comprehensively or exhaustively. 
The respective schools, it is assumed, will be increasingly disposed to be 

512 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 513 

selective of those elements or applications from fields of scientific 
knowledge which possess optimum value and significance for the learners 
concerned — cultural significance sometimes, vocational significance at 
others, and again significance toward conserving health or sharing well in 
civic action. 

In view of current educational usage, it is advantageous to discuss the 
objectives of the natural sciences in schools under these heads : (c) General 
Science; (&) The Physical Sciences; and (c) The Biological Sciences. 

A. GENERAL SCIENCE 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

Very small children now learn almost unconsciously from their older 
associates much scientific knowledge that was a sealed book even to the 
learned among their ancestors not many generations ago. With almost 
no perceptible effort or conflict of ideas, they learn that the sun does not 
go round the earth, that eclipses of the sun are due simply to shuttering 
by the moon, that there are invisible "germs" that give us disease, that 
certain night flying mosquitos bring malaria, and that there are no real 
leprechauns. 

The childhood understanding of each one of us was a mixture of true 
and false knowledge. Many adults among us still hold as true medical 
and political beliefs which are probably fully as absurd as the thirteenth- 
century beliefs that the earth was the center of the universe or that witches 
caused certain diseases and catastrophes. Under the spell of the authority 
of those whose judgment we trust, we accept, without curiosity or inquisi- 
tiveness, the scientific truth of many things. A recent writer said that 
probably not one hundred people in the United States really understand 
why the "movies seem to move" — in the profounder physiological sense, 
that is. Yet no one looks upon them as magic, or in any way beyond 
explanation by purely natural law. Electricity plays its numberless roles 
in our daily lives without exciting any more wonder than does dropping 
and flowing water. 

What extra-school education begins for us we can extend and somewhat 
organize in school education. For some decades educators, aspiring to 
enrich education, have been looking to "nature study" as a means. Some- 
times enthusiasts have taken that subject so seriously as to defeat their own 
purposes. The same fate may yet overtake the advocates of "general 
science." Like nearly all other "subject-matter" enthusiasts and partizans, 
they desire : that all children should learn the same things, or the essentials 
or the principles, of the subject; that the subject should be made compulsory 
for all; and that it should be used largely as a center of correlation for 
other subjects. Naturally, such partizans are little interested in "com- 
parative educational values," nor are they interested in the greatly variable 
interests or, in these special fields, educabilities, of children. 



514 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

1. When you were from five to eight years old, what were some of the 
phenomena of nature as to which you early acquired fairly "truthful" inter- 
pretations — changing phases of moon, movement of electric cars, telephony, 
phonographic speech, migrations of birds, and the like ? What were some phe- 
nomena that you interpreted mystically or otherwise unrealistically — plants 
alleged to be dangerous, spirit agencies, thought transference, and the like? 

2. Recall a variety of neighborhood superstitions which you once shared to 
some extent, and discuss your present attitude toward them. 

3. How do you explain your comparative incuriousness as to such wonderful 
phenomena as : the long migrations of birds ; the forces that push or pull sap 
up in trees ; the supposedly animal origins of all mineral oils ; the causes of 
the earth slips that produce earthquakes; the facts of lightning? 

4. In teaching children from six to twelve years of age more than they 
would otherwise know of general science, is it at all important that all chil- 
dren, or even any considerable numbers of them, should learn (o) the facts 
about the same phenomena, (b) the underlying principles, or (c) the ultimate 
utilities of such knowledge ? If some learn only about beach life and some 
only about furry creatures, will either group seriously miss what the other has? 

5. If, in teaching children of these years, your time permits you to take 
only one of each of these pairs of topics, which will you choose, and why : the 
tides or the sprouting of seeds; magnets or the nesting of birds; economiq 
service of birds or distant volcanos ; snow crystals or expansions produced by 
heat? 

6. What are some kinds of scientific knowledge and interests which you or 
your friends have which are respectively primarily (a.) cultural, (&) health 
conserving, (c) civic, or (d) vocational? Trace some of these to their origins 
in (a) schools or (b) environment. 

7. Looking forward for the next twenty years, what are some kinds of 
natural science knowledge which you think you should or will desire to obtain 
for these respective purposes: vocational success; better civic participation; 
improvement or retention of health; cultural satisfactions? 



THE OBJECTIVES OF GENERAL NATURAL SCIENCE 

Let US assume a large junior high school, well equipped, and proposing 
to offer among its electives four half-year courses of general science in 
grades seven and eight. Why should such courses be offered? To what 
classes or kinds of pupils would they be recommended? What should be 
the standards of attainment expected? What methods should govern in 
the work ? 

First, what is "general natural science," and how much of it is there? 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 515 

For the purposes and learners here under consideration, it seems proper to 
assume that all apprehensions and all correct interpretations of natural 
phenomena belong under natural science. The child who sees a new kind 
of bird, learns the distinctive name of a planet, reads about the behavior 
of the rhinoceros, or feels the prick of an electric current, is thereby 
adding to his scientific possessions. When he is helped to follow the 
processes from the planting of a bean to the emergence of two wonderful 
"leaves" ; when, after some guidance, he discovers that' bits of steel wire 
can be magnetized, whilst splinters of wood can not be magnetized; and 
when he reads that there are places in California where scarcely any rain 
falls because north and south running moimtain ranges in some way cut 
off the rain winds from the Pacific — he is laying the foundations of his 
structure of scientific knowledge. 

A prodigious wealth of scientific materials are now available for use 
in the junior high school — a hundred, perhaps a thousand times as much 
as any one average pupil could possibly assimilate. Each of the great 
sciences can contribute a large quota that is alluring and culturally sig- 
nificant — astronomy, geology, physiography, oceanography, meteorology, 
physics, chemistry, bacteriology, botany, dendrology, ornithology, ichthyol- 
ogy, and scores of others. 

But it is perhaps dangerous to the pedagogical sobriety of educators to 
begin erecting the subject of general science by means of possessions 
brought from the special sciences. Better turn to those massive phenomena 
which confront, or are reported to, learners from their environment, and 
begin the quest for some further understanding of them in each case. 
What and why are volcanos ? Crabs ? Tornados ? Watches ? Pestilences ? 
Petrified ichthyosaurs ? Tides? Diseases on the leaves of potatoes? 
Intolerable temperatures in deep mines ? Diamonds ? Electric drive steam- 
boats? Mineral oils? The Palisades? 

Perhaps "exploratory" and some other "projects" can be devised to 
promote assemblage of scientific data and interpretations drawn from the 
several fields that merge in great facts of individual or collective experi- 
ence. "Find a large amount of information about our city water supply." 
"What do we know about mosquitos ?" "Tell the story of the San Francisco 
earthquake." "Make a fairly extensive study and report on 'big game in 
Africa.' " "Construct a small electric generator according to directions." 
"See if we can make an old motorcycle engine run." "What did Pliny 
have to say about the eruptions of Vesuvius?" "Can we raise a good 
crop of potatoes on four hundred square feet of soil and keep them free 



5i6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

from pests?" "Give a demonstration of the action of yeast." These 
could be multiphed many times, obviously. We should have no difficulty 
in filling our four short courses, ten times over. 

But why teach general science? The old question recurs. Unless 
we can answer it, to our provisional satisfaction at least, we shall have, not 
only no acceptable criteria for choosing from the wealth of materials 
referred to, but no very satisfactory defense of any offerings at all. 

These theses arc submitted on the negative side : 

a. We should not teach general science primarily for its "practical" 
values. Pupils of the ages under consideration will need some scientific 
knowledge toward health conservation; but that objective should be 
realized through the study of hygiene, and not general science. Later 
they will require "related technical" science in vocational training; but 
that, too, is another largely unrelated matter. 

h. Again, we should not teach general science primarily to enable pupils 
to master basic principles. It is too early for that. The attempt invariably 
formalizes and deadens scientific teaching. It did much to quench the 
nature-study movement. Incidentally, of course, many principles and 
laws will be appreciated, if not apprehended ; but such attainments should 
be by-products. 

c. Furthermore, we should not be too insistent on using general science 
to interpret the environment. Under some conditions the Aurora Borealis 
may be more significant to curiosity and cultural interests than the current 
that drives the local street car ; tigers in India than sparrows ■ on the 
back lot ; and the big trees of California than the elms of the local 
highway. 

d. Course materials must not be compressed within the limits of single 
textbooks. 

\/ The objectives of general science instruction may in part be formu- 
lated in the light of these principles : 

a. Out of the vast ranges of general science available for this junior 
high school it is of no momentous importance which offerings we bring 
into our courses, provided : ( i ) the teacher is keenly interested in the 
offerings finally introduced; (2) experience shows that some pupils can 
be vitally interested in them; and (3) available facilities make practi- 
cable their fairly full and rich teaching. 

h. The portions of these offerings upon which pupils specialize may 
be widely variable. Under some conditions it is conceivable that no two 
pupils in a given class would be "working on" the same topics, problems, 
or projects — reading, exploring, experimenting, constructing. From 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 517 

time to time they would hear each other's reports. Naturally, there would 
be frequent interchange of impressions, discoveries, queries. 

c. The subject should be held as essentially developmental toward 
general culture. Therefore its basic methods should be those of intel- 
lectual play, including spontaneous assimilation of intellectual nurture. 
Good results are determined in studies of this character (as contrasted 
with projective studies) far more by interests, personal appreciations, 
and individual achievements than by what is learned in common. 

d. Obviously, no textbooks can be of much service. Rather, there 
should be provided sets of books, varied guide sheets to laboratory, ex- 
ploratory, and project work, and laboratory facilities as extensive as prac- 
ticable — but not necessarily great or of high order. Much extemporiz- 
ing should be expected. The Children's Book of Knowledge is antici- 
patory of what yve shall yet have in form more adapted to junior high 
school conditions, 

B. THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. What are some interesting and, in your estimation, cultural items of 
knowledge, grasp of general ideas, or vital curiosities that you now possess 
in relation to: the chemistry of explosives; the surface of the moon; the 
probable sources of mineral oils in the earth; some effects of the "Ice Age" 
on the surface of the United States; the processes of manufacturing steel; 
the chemical composition of the sun; the formation of images by lenses? 

2. Recall the "cultural attainments" of certain of your acquaintances in the 
foregoing or other similar matters. Have their possessions of this cultural 
knowledge proved sources of keen satisfaction to themselves? To others? 

3. What are some of the valuable contributions of knowledge to a scientific 
farmer (of a species to be stated by you) to be had from physics — and espe- 
cially from each of such divisions as optics, magnetism, properties of matter, 
hydrostatics, pneumatics, acoustics, and the like; chemistry — or its divisions 
dealing respectively with alkalis, acids and salts, metals, etc. ; meteorology ; 
astronomy; mineralogy; geology; physiography? 

4. You are" asked to select from the entire fields of physics and chemistry 
certain topics that might well be studied fairly intensively by a girl of sixteen 
(who has previously had only some general science) who will soon take up 
intensive study of home-making. What topics would you select? 

5. Assume yourself called upon to outline an "appreciation" course in chem- 
istry and physics of which the equivalent of sixty hours — five hours a week 
for twelve weeks — was to be given to "civic" physical science, with especial 



5i8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

reference to sanitation and public health. What topics would you select for 
the latter purpose ? 

6. Assume yourself called upon to provide a thirty hours' course in appre- 
ciational or cultural astronomy for election by tenth-grade pupils in high 
school. What topics would you select, and what methods of teaching would 
you employ? 

7. Of the following "natural sciences," all of which have been adapted to 
purposes of secondary education, which are the "most important" — ^physics, 
chemistry, physiography, geology, astronomy, zoology, botany, biology, bacteri- 
ology, physiology? Why? 

Which of the foregoing are probably most important to specified groups of 
high-school pupils for "vocational" reasons? Which for "cultural" reasons? 
Which for reasons of physical well-being? Which for "civic" reasons? 
Which for reasons of mental discipline or training in "scientific method" ? 

What kinds of "vague" knowledge or appreciations do you possess in each 
of the above fields? What deficiencies trouble you? Do you feel seriously 
deficient in "culture" because of your "areas" of ignorance? 

Do you now regard it as better that, apart from anticipated vocational 
needs, each high-school pupil should have eight weeks in each of the ten sci- 
ences mentioned, or forty weeks in each of two? 

8. If we define the controlling purpose of "liberal education" to be the edu- 
cating of men to be "high-grade" utilizers, — in eating, reading, dwelling, 
recreating, enjoying music, appreciating the universe in which we live, em- 
ploying the services of others, and enjoying fellowship with other men and 
God, — what are specific units of knowledge, revelation, ideal, or technique that 
can advantageously be derived by adolescents from each of the above sciences ? 

9. In elementary-school study of sciences, what importance should be at- 
tached to grasp of "general principles" ? What general principles do you 
now know in fields of chemistry, biology, astronomy? What importance 
should attach to attainment of "scientific method"? What are your own 
attainments — particular or general — here? 

10. What are some phases of the content of chemistry that can advan- 
tageously be taught in the first five grades; in grades 6 and 7; in grades 
8 and 9; in grades 11 and 12? 

What reasons can you- give as to why this chemistry should be taught, rather 
than equivalent amounts of biology or astronomy or geology ? 

11. What are the chief vocations in the practice or study of which sub- 
stantial amounts of chemical knowledge or of technique of chemical manipu- 
lation can be advantageously employed ? Do these include : elementary-school 
teaching, house carpentry, electrical engineering, pharmacy, home-making, de- 
partment-store salesmanship, navigation? 

12. What phases of chemistry are advantageous to the person of moderate 
culture to-day who is using a large amount of effort to conserve and improve 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 519 

his health ? Illustrate by reference to nutrition, rest, ventilation, vocation, care 
of body. 

What phases of chemistry can advantageously be employed by the average 
citizen who would become fairly proficient as a buyer of such utilities as : 
textile fabrics; preserved foods; house furnishings; household utensils? 

What phases of chemistry can advantageously be known by the citizen who 
would effectively participate as voter in the direction of public sanitation — 
disposal of waste, maintenance of medical inspection of schools, water sup- 
ply, development of housing legislation, supervision of markets, eradication of 
insect pests ? 

13. What phases of chemistry would now be regarded primarily as contri- 
butions to the satisfaction of cultural interests, with little or no reference 
to practical application ? Here consider : chemistry of explosives, and of 
dyestuffs ; recent changes in the atomic theory ; recently revealed twilight zones 
between chemistry and physics ; spectroscopic chemistry ; recently developed 
phases of large-scale industrial chemistry. 

14. Would it seem desirable and practicable in large high schools to provide 
two very distinctive types of courses in chemistry — (a) appreciational 
courses designed primarily to impart apprehensions in wide areas; and (b) 
pre-vocational or pre-technical courses for those designing later to enter chem- 
istry-using vocations or to prosecute higher studies in this field? 

Could similar appreciational courses be developed in physics, bacteriology, 
geology, and botany? 

15. Assume the case of a large number of girls in high school who intend 
sooner or later to study home economics toward very practical ends, but will 
take up no other studies or vocations which require any chemical knowledge. 
Suggest the scope and characteristics of a pre-technical course in chemistry 
adapted primarily to these girls. 

Assume the case of a substantial number of boys in the third year of high 
school who plan to enter engineering colleges. Suggest the scope and char- 
acter of a pre-technical course in chemistry of four hundred hours (to include 
school and outside study) for these boys. 

16. Is there any pre-technical chemistry that can advantageously be offered 
to persons planning later: (a) to study in ordinary secondary schools of 
farming; (b) to follow the vocation of machinist; (c) to undertake coal min- 
ing ? Why do you think as you do ? 

17. What phases of chemistry can properly be included in the first-year 
high-school course of general science ? 

PHYSICAL SCIENCES 

The physical sciences, for purposes of this discussion, will be taken to 
include physics, chemistry, physiography, geology, astronomy, meteor- 



520 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ology, mineralogy, and their related sciences or subdivisions, as these 
enable us to interpret, and in a measure control, the material universe in 
vi^hich we live — in its non-biological aspects. 

Why should the physical sciences be taught in schools? What educa- 
tional values are to be sought in them? How much of any one, if any 
at all, is essential to the reahzation of these values? To what kinds or 
classes of pupils is it most important that they be taught? How can 
it be established that for these pupils the values of other subjects which 
must be crowded out are not superior to the values of these sciences? 
Where and when shall these sciences be taught? Which, and how much 
of each? By what means and methods? 

Adequate sociological and other data necessary to answer these ques- 
tions is not now available. Some of the issues and problems involved 
admit, however, of considerable analysis in the light of experience. 
Numberless attempts have been made during the last few centuries to 
teach the physical sciences in schools. Many of these have succeeded 
in some measure. 

The kinds of objectives that can be achieved through physical science 
teaching should at the outset be classified into the "projective" and the 
"developmental." It is clearly the expectation of those who control 
college admission requirements in physics and chemistry that these sub- 
jects shall be so taught in high school as to produce certain quantities of 
definite knowledge, and certain kinds of definite technique, which shall 
persist as foundations of subsequent study. It will not be disputed that 
any physical science, studied with a view to subsequent application of 
its principles or its methods in vocational activities, should be learned to 
very considerable degrees of exactness. 

At the other extreme are the kinds of knowledge that many of us 
have acquired of Mars, the North Pole, the volcanos of Hawaii, the 
caves of Kentucky, the extraction of nitrogen from the air, and the 
processes of mountain building. Assuming that we have not had occa- 
sion to specialize in these fields, it is evident that our knowledge is super- 
ficial and inexact, but" nevertheless massive and satisfying. We appre- 
ciate fairly well the essential factors involved, though we could not use 
our knowledge for any practical purpose. Possibly this appreciation 
differs from exact knowledge, as does a painting of a landscape from 
a photograph. The details are absent, but the mass effects may be even 
heightened thereby. 

Little progress can be made in advancing the study of the physical 
sciences in our schools until we shall have achieved concrete and exten- 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 521 

sively exemplified analysis of these different classes of objectives. Let 
us think of young people, of at least average native intelligence, passing 
through the twelve grades of our public schools. Is it desirable and 
practicable that they, or at least some of them, should have astronomy? 
Why? Certainly not to make astronomers, navigators, or meteorologists 
out of them. To make them appreciative of the universe in which we 
find ourselves, and of man's achievements to date in comprehending the 
distances and movements and composition of the universe? Probably, 
yes. But how much knowledge is "enough" here ? Suppose an inter- 
ested teacher were given twenty hours in each of the third, fifth, seventh, 
ninth, and eleventh grades in which to teach cultural astronomy — what 
would he do? With what degrees of exactness would he seek to have 
some things learned? 

The objectives of chemistry and physics need similar classification. 
It is clearly possible, and probably desirable, to teach certain portions 
of these sciences to high-school pupils who expect later to study for the 
engineering and some other technical vocations in such a way that essen- 
tial knowledge and method are acquired once for all. Probably the 
eleventh and twelfth grades are very suitable places for such pre-engineer- 
ing physical science. In view of the exacting nature of these vocations, 
there are probably no good reasons why high-school studies offered as 
pre-vocational electives to them should not likewise be rigorously and 
exactingly taught. 

But these methods will almost certainly defeat the cultural purposes of 
science study on the part of those who expect to make no vocational use 
of their attainments. Given sufficient resources, a large high school can 
certainly render an important educational service by offering in eleventh 
and twelfth grades genuinely cultural courses in physics and chemistry. 
These certainly should not make a fetish of exact knowledge, neither 
need they train the pupils long and patiently in quantitative determina- 
tions. Cultural ends are best served by developing and extending appre- 
ciations, broad interpretations and insights, persisting interests. 

Other needs can be brought into relief through case-group analyses. 
In a high school having a regular attendance of six hundred girls there 
are always present substantially one hundred to all of whom this descrip- 
tion applies with substantial accuracy : they do not vary greatly from 
the average in intelligence; they will not go to college, and most of them, 
in fact, will not remain in high school to graduate; and they possess 
as yet only the "average" cultural and civic interests commonly found 
in their age, sex, and class. The controlling purpose of a sound high- 



522 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

school education is for them, let us hope, to advance their cultural, civic, 
and health-controlling- powers and appreciations, and, incidentally, to 
give them some pre-vocational training, if feasible and desirable. 

How shall these general objectives be translated into specific objec- 
tives for physical science teaching? Let us assume that in eighth or 
ninth grades general science has been taught with some degree of success ; 
and that a cultural course in biology has been offered in ninth or tenth 
grades. 

In the tenth or eleventh grade could be offered two courses in physical 
science that would, if elected, have obvious values to these girls: (a) 
An appreciation course of one year, including materials from both physics 
and chemistry, and covering ground different from, or more advanced 
than, that taken in general science. (&) A pre-home-making course in 
applied physics and chemistry, centering in topics having relatively large 
pertinence to the home-making vocations. The latter course, probably, 
should not cover a very wide range — since it appears that only limited 
areas of physics and chemistry have any pertinence in home-making, 
though these are of relatively great importance. 

Why should chemistry be taught at all in secondary school or college ? 
Granted that we can provide a successful defense for the thesis that 
chemistry should be taught, there still remain two other obstinate ques- 
tions to which contemporary pedagogy gives as yet no satisfactory 
answers. These are: To whom should it be taught? How much of it 
should be taught? 

But back of these questions are the more fundamental ones : What 
do we mean by "chemistry" as a school or college subject? What are 
the "values" to be realized through study, enforced or permitted, of that 
subject? How do these values compare, in importance or urgency, with 
those that might be achieved by giving the time now assigned to chemistry 
to other studies? 

As a school subject chemistry is fairly well standardized, of course, 
through college entrance requirements. But upon what foundations of 
demonstrated need, individual or social, do these now rest? No one 
can say with certainty. Like Topsy, the standards implicit (or explicit 
only in aspirational language) in these requirements have "jest growed." 
True, the alleged purpose is to teach the rudiments or elements — the ele- 
ments, that is, of knowledge, as was once contended, or, in more modern 
ideal, of technique, process, or scientific method. 

But there is, for up-to-date pedagogy, too much of pious faith about 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 523 

this purpose of teaching the "elements" of any subject. We do not 
any longer attempt to teach the English language through alphabets and 
grammars. Too many introductory texts in chemistry seem still to 
present the subject as penmanship was presented in the days of "pot- 
hooks." 

It is time to go to fundamentals in the search for criteria of educa- 
tional values here. The entire field of organized chemical knowledge 
is now vast, but well defined. So are corresponding fields of knowledge 
in astronomy, bacteriology, philology, ethnology. Knowledge expands in 
geometrical progression; but individual human capacity remains much 
what it long has been, subject to some helps from teachers, books, and 
apparatus. 

Assume that we could distinguish in the early stages of their secondary- 
school stage one hundred persons of whose subsequent careers the fol- 
lowing facts would be substantially true : they will receive the equivalent 
of at least two years of liberal arts college education ; they will be among 
the "upper" cultural classes throughout their adult life, being thus in 
a position to contribute to high-grade standards of utilization, public 
opinion, and the like; they will follow vocations in which chemistry plays 
no visible part — law, accounting, foreign-language teaching, dry goods, 
merchandise, etc. 

All sorts of arguments could, obviously, be presented for giving to this 
case-group, as part of their liberal education, Latin, French, medieval 
history, classical English literature, economics, mathematics, physics, 
biology, astronomy, drawing, vocal music, and hygiene. They can not 
have everything — at least, in any considerable quantities. Should we 
include chemistry? Could we include some chemistry — not, perhaps, the 
staple four hundred hours (class and laboratory) of the secondary school, 
but a less amount, so presented as to give a persisting body of cultural 
appreciations ? 

Assume a second case-group of one hundred of whom it is reasonably 
certain that nearly all will enter vocations — farming, home-making, 
mining, engineering, pharmacy — in which, sooner or later, some exact 
knowledge, and some refined technique, of a chemical nature will be 
required. For these we could certainly recommend a course no less 
exacting than that now commonly outlined in college admission require- 
ments. Might it not well be even more exacting and, especially, even 
more insistent on the study of practical applications? 

The first type of course would be essentially cultural, the second prop- 



524 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

erly pre-vocational. The first should culminate in varied appreciations, 
the second in definite powers of execution or performance. The first 
should certainly not involve as "hard" pedagogy as the second. 

It is not assumed, of course, that any actual school would show in 
clearly differentiated form the two classes of learners referred to. But 
we know, in the light of subsequent events, that such classes nearly always 
exist in secondary schools. It may not always be clear to which class 
John Doe, aged fourteen, now belongs. But we can make no progress 
in education by considering at the outset individual cases only. 

If the two classes referred to actually exist, — that is, if the two types 
of needs are found, — then the school should provide appropriate courses 
for each. Its later problem is to provide, by recommendation or prescrip- 
tion, for the best possible adaptation of individuals to the respective 
courses. 

Our present courses in chemistry suffer from the evil of trying to 
serve two unlike purposes — the cultural (or appreciative) and the pre- 
vocational (or executive). Hence they are not quite fish, nor yet quite 
fowl. 

Representatives of the chemical vocations necessarily think of intro- 
ductory courses in pre-vocational terms, having in mind the exacting 
standards of later practical studies. But there is some chemical knowl- 
edge, insight, or even training, which should be the possession of all, 
irrespective of vocations to be followed. Students and practitioners of 
chemistry are bad guides for us here. When the exponents of genuinely 
liberal education shall have found sound pedagogical principles, they 
should be able to guide us. 



A PROBLEM 

High School M has a regular attendance of about 1200 students^ — 500 
in their first year, 350 in their second, 200 in their third, and 150 in 
their fourth. Of these 4ast about 120 will graduate, and 90 will probably 
go to higher institutions. There is no commercial department, nor is 
home economics or manual training offered. 

The local population is engaged largely in manufacturing enterprises, 
most of the families who send pupils to this high school having incomes 
of from eighteen hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars a year. Students 
desiring commercial work go to another high school, as do also boys 
attracted to manual training. This high school has always been a "gen- 



THE NATURAL SCIENCE STUDIES 525 

eral" school, having college preparation as its chief -specific purpose. It 
is well equipped with laboratories for physics and chemistry. 

Investigation shows that fewer than one third of the students remain 
to graduate. Those who leave during the first two years enter upon 
commercial or factory work, there being no local vocational schools except 
that for typewriting and stenography. 

Leaving one course each in chemistry and physics primarily for 
students wishing to enter college, describe the cultural, pre-vocational, 
or other objectives that would guide in proposing plans for one other 
course in each of these fields primarily for students who can not be 
expected to remain to graduate. 

C. BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

1. What are some items of your knowledge in these fields that are of keen 
interest to you: the wild-animal life of Africa; the vegetation of the Amazon 
Valley ; the antiquity of plant life on the globe ; the evolution of animal spe- 
cies; the probable animal ancestry of man; the breathing processes of plants; 
essential facts as to the life processes of bacteria? 

2. Given ample leisure time, in which, if any, of the following fields would 
you like to pursue further cultural studies : protective coloration of animals ; 
desert biology; cultivation of rare varieties of flowers; exploration of deep- 
sea animal life; migrations of plant life; others? 

3. What are some of the kinds of biological knowledge that have voca- 
tional significance to : the dairy farmer ; the school nurse ; the minister ; the 
deep-sea fisherman; the orchardist; and the dietitian? 

4. What kinds of "nature study," in your experience, proves most interest- 
ing and culturally profitable to children between six and ten years of age ? 
Separately consider: bird life vs. magnetism and electricity; plant growing vs. 
manipulation of machines ? Does it seem to you that readings about stars are 
preferred to readings about animals? Volcanos to deep-sea marine life? 

5. What are some current lines of biological knowledge and hypothesis 
which you would consider it expedient to teach to high-school pupils ? Why ? 

6. Is it your opinion that biological studies can be made effective approaches 
to these useful fields of appreciation and knowledge : the moral instincts of 
human beings; sex hygiene; sex morality; city sanitation; backwardness of 
tropical peoples; communicable diseases? 

The educational values of the biological sciences, as these can be 
taught in schools, are manifestly of three kinds : (a) cultural, without 
reference to practical utihty; (&) "self-service," toward care of health 



526 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

and discharge of civic responsibilities; and (c) pre-vocational. In former 
years the first purpose largely controlled in botany and zoology as then 
taught. In recent years the second purpose seems actually to have been 
most functional, with a certain amount of rather vague and indeterminate 
reference to vocational outcomes. 

Nearly all that has been said earlier of the physical sciences applies 
likewise to the biological. The latter have had somewhat the advantage of 
physics and chemistry in recent years in having had certain enthusiastic sup- 
porters and innovators among high-school teachers, and in having received 
somewhat less of desiccating attentions from college admission committees. 

The cultural objectives of these sciences acquire peculiar importance in 
current thinking because of their intimate relation to the foundations 
of the social sciences. Perhaps in time the doctrine of evolution will 
have become a commonplace, as is now the Copernican system ; but until 
then the cultural interests of many will be acutely intrigued by the 
"wonder-inspiring" possibilities of the former. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Huxley, T. Science and Education (Ch. 4, A Liberal Education and 

Where to Find It; Ch. 6, On Science and Culture). 
JuDD, C. H. The Psychology of High School Subjects (Ch. 14, Science). 
Lloyd and Bigelow. The Teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools. 
Mann, C. R. The Teaching of Physics (with bibliography) (Ch. i, 

The Background). 
Smith and Hall. TJie Teaching of Chemistry and Physics in Secondary 

School (Ch. I, Reasons for the Study). 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 19-21, Problems 

of Natural Science Teaching). 
Spencer, H. Education. 
Sutherland, W. J. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. 4, The Relation 

of Geography to the Sciences). 
Trafton, G. H. The ^Teaching of Science in the Elementary School 

(Part I, The Pedagogy of Science Instruction). 
Twiss, G. R. Textbook of the Principles of Science Teaching. 
Van Buskirk and Smith. The Science of Every-Day Life (a text of 

general science). 
WooDHULL, J. F. The Teaching of Science (Ch. i. The Educational 

Values of Natural Science; Ch. 5, Science for Culture; Ch. 17, The 

Aims and Methods of Science Teaching). 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
GEOGRAPHY 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

GEOGRAPHY has long been one of the most important of ele- 
mentary school subjects in American schools ; but we give it much 
less attention in secondary and collegiate schools than do Europeans. 
Educators who become interested in geography sometimes grow ex- 
tremely enthusiastic over the possibilities of that subject as a center for 
the correlation of natural science, history, and the social sciences. The 
rivalries of publishers have given us in recent years books of wonderful 
printing and replete with illustrations. 

All readers of these pages have studied geography in schools ; and 
they have all subsequently added much to their geographical knowledge 
by reading, travel, and conyersation with travelers. How does your 
geographical knowledge now serve you? Are you conscious of serious 
shortages? Does it seem- that you were taught much "useless" geog- 
raphy ? What kinds ? Test yourself by these questions : 

1. What do you "know" now about Africa? Name one, three, ten of its 
rivers. Four principal cities of the South African Union. Three principal 
imports, and four principal exports, from that dominion. European owner- 
ship or control of the rest of Africa. What "appreciations" have you of : the 
wild-aniraal life of central Africa; the religious and social conditions of the 
natives of that region; what the English, French, and Belgians are doing 
there ? 

2. Is it important that adults of moderate cultural standards should know 
quite exactly certain geographical facts? Briefly define the character and 
extent of these in your estimation under the following heads : 

a. River, city, and mountain-peak names and locations in South. America ; 
national areas, boundaries, and populations of South America ; principal im- 
ports and exports of South American countries. 

h. Essential facts regarding Paris, the Nile Valley, Rumania, the products 
of Syria, the social characteristics of the Indo-Chinese, governmental facts 
regarding India. 

c. What essential facts should be known by these adults regarding : the 
sources of raw rubber; the principal book -publishing centers in the United 
States; the avenues by which raw cotton reaches centers of manufacturing; 

527 



528 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the present sources of the world's supply of nitrates; international situations 
affecting China; the urban trend of populations throughout the world? 

3. There are very substantial amounts of geographical material which in 
all grades pupils should be induced to apprehend — through general readings, 
visits to moving pictures, and other realistic means — toward the ends of "de- 
velopmental" education, but without expectation that facts or principles thus 
apprehended shall remain available for conscious intellectual recovery — exact 
learning. Specify certain varieties of this material under these heads : 

a. Books of travel in Africa, central Europe, China, the polar regions. 
h. Moving pictures of the Alps, Indian jungles, Japanese cities, steel fnanu- 
facture. 

c. Narrative and descriptive children's books dealing with coffee produc- 
tion, Alaska gold mining, conservation of seals, rehabilitation of war-ravaged 
zones, Mohammedan ceremonies. 

d. The printed and pictoria.1 presentations of the National Geographical 
Magazine. 

e. Graphically described processes of water erosion, ice movements, tidal 
oscillation, and cyclonic disturbances. 

4. Are there fields of so-called vocational geography ? Could these profitably 
be studied in junior or senior high schools? What are the vocations to which 
this knowledge is, or could be, pre-vocational ? 

Describe some kinds of vocational geography necessary in schools of : navi- 
gation; naval warfare; commerce; farming; graduate business administra- 
tion ; medicine. 

Is it important that commercial geography be made a required subject in 
commercial high schools for girls preparing chiefly for stenography and sales- 
manship ? In high schools of commerce for boys where many may become 
commercial travelers? What should be the content of commercial geography? 

5. Can studies of geography be devised which will contribute, directly or 
indirectly, to the higher forms of civism ? Analyze these under such heads as : 

a. The development of constructive appreciations of the variegated back- 
grounds of our own social population — with a view to producing well socialized 
appreciations of geographic backgrounds in England, Italy, Russia, Japan, 
Ireland, Germany, American Iridians, for negroes, etc. 

h. Toward sympathetic comprehension of economic, cultural, racial, and 
other social characteristics of rival peoples — Japanese, Germans, Mexicans, etc. 

c. Sympathetic comprehension of crucial problems in international relation- 
ships — migration of peoples, productive abilities, sanitation, territorial speciali- 
zation and production, international exchanges, overpopulation, etc. 

d. Sympathetic comprehension of crucial internal problems — racial or other 
caste segregations, conservation of natural resources, urbanization of popu- 
lations, localization of production, public development of means of trans- 
portation. 



GEOGRAPHY 529 

6. What are the actual desirable objectives of cultural geography? How 
can these be compared to culture acquired from travel? Does this material 
belong mostly under the head of "developmental" or "projective" objectives? 

7. Specify certain objectives toward which pupils should be trained in 
schools that should give adults, not quantities of mentally stored knowledge, 
but abilities quickly to gather and interpret knowledge from printed sources 
— the use of gazetteers, railroad timetables, contour maps, location of statis- 
tical repositories, interpretation of technical terms, etc. 

8. Suggest a scheme by which, in a teachers' manual or guide to the teaching 
of geography in grades 4 to 10, the objectives could all be classified, first on an 
alpha-beta basis, second by the types of aims to be achieved (vocational, social, 
cultural), and third by the various topographic areas of the earth's surface. 
Suggest means by which a committee (a geographer, an intelligent business 
man, a cultivated home-maker, and a superintendent of schools) might or- 
ganize and delimit the desirable projective objectives that should constitute 
minimum essentials in this field. 



SCOPE OF REQUIRED GEOGRAPHY 

No educator would seriously contend that we should dispense with 
geography as an elementary school subject. Nor would any well in- 
formed man object to the provision of rich elective courses in the 
several phases of geography in secondary school and college. But are 
we not considerably overdoing geography as a subject of compulsory 
instruction for all children in the first eight grades? And does it not 
seem probable that, through the very wealth of materials we now present, 
we are frustrating adequate assimilation? 

The general subject of geography grows manifestly richer and more 
alluring. Exploration and research are opening up new territories year 
by year. Modern commerce makes accessible and significant regions 
that a few years ago even the well informed man thought of as far 
removed and negligible. Geology, meteorology, oceanography, biology, 
ethnology, and history are contributing new stores of interpretive ma- 
terials. The war has created new political boundaries, revealed unsus- 
pected interdependencies, and emphasized ethnic dissimilarities. 

Those educators, from Parker to Huntington, who have specialized 
in geography seem naturally to become ardent partizans. Their followers 
rival each other in making full and attractive textbooks. Books of 
travel, photography, and picture projection reinforce their efiforts. To 
geography much is given, and from it but little is taken away. 

Surely we can not teach, or even thoroughly sample, all the "new 



530 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

geography" in grades 4 to 8. It is sometimes forgotten that there are 
many other subjects to be taught here, not only to the children who will 
go on to higher schools, but even more to those whose abilities and op- 
portunities deny them any considerable schooling of more than elementary 
grades. The various English-language studies, history, civics, literature, 
arithmetic, hygiene, practical arts, vocational guidance, current events, 
music, and fine arts, all have claims. Some years ago we began unload- 
ing "non-essential" arithmetic, spelling, and grammar from elementary 
school curricula. Recent textbooks in geography show some progress 
away from their former encyclopedic character and toward emphasis on 
more massive elements. Nevertheless they seem to reveal but slight 
progress as yet toward "minimum essentials." 

The present writer is convinced that there is now acute need of a 
thoroughgoing discussion of certain problems of objectives in this field. 
For fifty years pedagogic discussion has centered far more around 
methods than around aims — except where these last have been developed 
by enthusiasts like Parker and Jackman, who would willingly expand 
geography to embrace half of all the offerings of the elementary-school 
curriculum. 

SELECTION OF OBJECTIVES 

The time is ripe to return to certain basic questions : Why should 
we teach geography — to all children under twelve, to all children from 
twelve to fifteen, to some young people from fifteen to twenty-two? 
What should we teach at these various levels? To what ends or pur- 
poses should we teach it — ^present impressionism and nurture of imagina- 
tion, provision of definite knowledge for use throughout adult years, 
a wide range of social appreciations? How much time can we afford 
to give to geography, in view of all other objectives that must be met? 

New textbooks in geography suggest to students of educational ob- 
jectives these and several other queries. Why should so much atten- 
tion be given to geografphy as an elementary-school subject? To what 
extent are geography specialists at variance as to the essentials of that 
subject for general or "common school' education? Is it a fact, as 
frequently alleged, that the men and women who are the products of 
our schools are still very confused in their knowledge of geography ? Does 
it not seem probable that geography is now, like the arithmetic of some 
decades ago, a very much "overloaded" subject? 

It is sometimes forgotten that textbooks and outlined courses in this 



GEOGRAPHY 531 

as in other subjects are taken very seriously by heavily burdened teachers 
of average ability and little inventiveness. Teachers of exceptional ability 
and opportunity — including a large proportion of departmental special- 
ists — can make themselves largely independent of the specifications of 
textbooks— and in geography to a peculiar extent they actually do so. 
But it is probable that a large proportion of teachers in grades 5 to 8 
are more than ever bewildered by the wealth of materials on the one 
hand, and the vagueness of the objectives suggested on the other, in the 
books now at their disposal. 

It is useless to say that they would not have these troubles if they 
were "properly" prepared. Books and course outlines are tools, not for 
idealized workers, but for the human agents — pupils and teachers — 
as now prevailingly found. These people, working busily against time, 
are entitled to the best help that leaders can give. The present writer 
is convinced that they are entitled to more adequate and explicit infor- 
mation than we now give them as to certain kinds of "minimum essen- 
tials." Certainly some kinds of geographical knowledge or technique 
are more valuable than others? But existing textbooks introduce but 
few suggestions of shading or emphasis into the prodigality of materials 
they present. Is there any other subject in which just now the question 
of "what knowledge is most worth while" more urgently demands thor- 
oughgoing study? 

THE NEEDS OF CERTAIN PUPILS 

In order to bring into focus certain factors in our problems, let us 
consider the needs of a "case-group." Entering the seventh grade of 
almost any large urban school are considerable numbers of boys of whom 
it can safely be prophesied that they will not enter, much less complete, a 
four years' high-school course. These are boys of less than average 
intelligence on the one hand, and of somewhat adverse social environment 
on the other. The vocational, cultural, and civic futures of these boys 
can now be predicted with substantial accuracy. 

For the sake of definitive analysis of educational aims, and ignoring 
for the present the administrative difficulties involved, we can assume 
ourselves preparing a course of study in geography for these pupils. They 
have had some geography in the earlier grades, but in the seventh and 
eighth grades it will be urged that "advanced" geography be studied. 
Many other subjects will inevitably compete for place and time in the 
curriculum for these pupils — arithmetic, American history, civics, the 



532 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

various English-language branches, hygiene, drawing, some form of indus- 
trial arts, vocational guidance, music, current events, and English litera- 
ture, at least. 

It will doubtless readily be agreed by all educators : 

a. That for these pupils geography is one of the half-dozen most im- 
portant subjects in elementary education. 

b. That, as expected outcomes of such study, men and women of 
elementary-school education should possess some exact knowledge of 
geographical facts, and some useful techniques of finding and interpret- 

• ing new knowledge when needed. 

c. That there is a great wealth of geographical material — accounts of 
travel, vivid descriptions of distant places and peoples, pictures, commer- 
cial wares, and the like— which can advantageously be presented in these 
grades as intellectual and social "nurture," but of which no exhaustive 
study — memorization, review, problem solving, or analysis — should be re- 
quired. 

How much geography is- enough? Obviously, the most difficult 
problems of objectives here are qiiantitative . Every educated adult should 
be expected to know some salient facts about two or four cities in France ; 
but should any one be expected to know similar facts about thirty cities 
in that country ? Every educated American will be expected to know the 
capital of his country ; should he be expected to know the capitals of all 
the states ? There are several scores of named rivers in South America — 
how many should each of us be able tO' name and locate? 

Similar problems appear in connection with interpretations of physical 
geography. Geologists and physiographists have deduced many interest- 
ing explanations as to why there are so many lakes in Minnesota and so 
few in Texas, as to how. the deep soil of China was formed, and as to 
why the Alaskan southern coast climate is so warm and moist. To the 
man with special interests in these things their number is legion and their 
lurS almost without limit. But do not most of these belong in the fields 
of special cultural education, along with advanced studies of the wealth 
of literature, history, general science, music, and art, to be elected by 
learners devoted to that particular cultural, or sometimes vocational, 
pursuit ? 

Geographical knowledge of some kinds and degrees should be so 
definitely learned as to remain largely "functional" into adult years in 
the case of persons of modal intelligence, cultural interests, and social out- 
look. What is such essential knowledge of South America? Ocean cuir- 
rents? The social qualities of the peoples of India? Distributions t)f. 



GEOGRAPHY 533 

rainfall? Sources of coffee and rubber? Distributions of various mineral 
resources? Ethnic divisions in central Europe? Chief products of 
Texas ? 

The textbooks in geography now widely used seem to give the busy 
teacher little help in determining relative values within this subject. 
Thousands of questions are often asked, these often to be answered by 
pupils with maps open before them. But what is expected of abiding and 
fairly exact knowledge ? Does not class-room work of this kind promote 
superficiality, unless teachers — the rank and file, of course, since the gifted 
ones will make their own methods — are quite specifically informed as to 
the areas where superficiality and impressionism are "good enough" ? 

PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVES 

The questions raised at the outset can be further analyzed into problems 
which, it is submitted, deserve careful study in the near future. For ex- 
ample : 

1. Are there essentially different kinds of intellectual products that 
should be sought through the study of geography? 

2. What should we expect as tangible outcomes, along each of these 
lines, in the case of men and women from twenty-five to fifty years of 
age, who are: (a) of substantially less than average intelligence, but with 
schooling of at least six grades; (b) of the 50 per cent, nearest modal 
intelligence; and (c) of superior intelligence? 

First, it is to be noted that there are several kinds of geographical 
knowledge and technique that must be considered in determining the values 
of and within that subject. Study of the interests and attainments of 
moderately well educated men around us ■ will show that these kinds are 
to be included : 

a. Fairly definite knowledge of certain salient geographical facts— 
the approximate location of Paris, the two principal rivers of China, the 
commercial importance of Buenos Ay res, the political control of Java, etc. 

b. Appreciations, or generalized knowledge warmed by sentiment, of 
a considerable range of geographical phenomena and conditions — the 
crowded populations of the monsoon-swept regions, the extent of the 
Mississippi Valley, the industrial condition of western Europe, the wild 
game conditions of south-central Africa, and the like. 

c. Social appreciations that are taught in the expectation of producing 
civic and other social understandings of remote peoples — admiration, com- 
prehension, sympathy, and the like — which will later be functional in 



534 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

affecting political, cultural, and other international relationships. (The 
moving pictures are now running a series under the title "America Face- 
to-Face with Japan," designed, in part, to extend understanding, and in 
part to evoke specific feelings with regard to that people.) 

d. Certain technical powers of interpreting maps,- searching for 
needed information in gazetteers and other works of reference, and of 
ii^iterpreting geographical statistics in tabular or graphic form. 

e. Some abiding cultural interests in distant regions or peoples, shown 
in persistent reading of books of travel, patronage of select exhibits of 
pictures and wares, club contacts with travelers, and the like. 

Second, though we have virtually no such standards at present, it is 
unlikely that desirable and practicable objectives for school geography can 
be formulated until we shall have agreed upon certain outcomes or results 
in adult life that characterize the man fairly well educated according to 
his potentialities. Every well informed man, in relation to his potential 
powers, should have some exact knowledge of certain geographical facts — 
what and how many? He should have certain generous appreciations 
and interests — what kinds and how many? He should have some con- 
scious powers of interpreting geographical problems — why cities have 
grown on certain sites, why storms migrate from west to east, why trade 
"follows the flag" — how many, what, and especially why? 

PROPOSED READJUSTMENTS 

It may be doubted whether geography enthusiasts can be induced to see 
their subjett in its due relation to all the other subjects of school education. 
In fact, we should not look to partizans of any subject for wisdom as to 
relative educational values. Problems of the relative values of geography 
and other subjects will become acute in proportion as the junior high 
school type of organization supersedes the upper grades of the eight- 
grade elementary school. The junior high school will bring departmental 
teaching and subject-matter specialists as teachers. It will force distinc- 
tions between required and optional courses. Its coming will undoubtedly 
force more careful consideration of relative educational values than has 
heretofore been given. 

The general subject of geography in elementary and secondary schools 
should, it is submitted, be thus organized : 

a. Further extension of present tendencies toward producing rich and 
varied "developmental" materials in the first four grades. 

b. Differentiation in grades 5 to 7 of two very different kinds of 



GEOGRAPHY 535 

geography: (i) Minimum essentials consisting of those portions of the 
entire field of geographical knowledge as to which fairly exact mastery in 
adult life should be retained. (2) Further developmental geography, 
appealing largely to contemporary interests, and having little bearing on 
specific knowledge or powers to^ be possessed in the future. 

To this end it would seem to be necessary, first, that formulations be 
made of those objectives that are essentially projective,— that is, where 
outcomes in adult life are to consist of fairly exact knowledge, apprecia- 
tions, and technical powers have some form of ascertainable utility, — 
cultural, civic, or vocational. These can be regarded as the essentials 
of "hard" geography. Problems of the best methods to be adapted to the 
realization of these essential objectives require separate consideration. 
Doubtless many educators dread the effect upon teachers of this segrega- 
tion of a relatively small number of fairly concrete objectives, since it is 
so easy for teachers to strive for quite "formal" mastery of these. Never- 
theless it is in this direction that progress must be made toward minimum 
essentials. 

Second, it is desirable to bring into some kind of pedagogic order the 
immense wealth of "developmental" materials now available — supple- 
mental geographic readers, books of travel, geographic magazines, photo- 
graphs, moving pictures, and the like. Perliaps these can be assembled 
and organized, but certainly they can never again be brought within the 
covers of one* textbook. 

SUPPLEMENTAL PROBLEMS 

Geography becomes, under some conditions, a vocational study. What 
are these conditions B 

Obviously, schools of navigation must make extensive use of at least 
certain portions of geography as commonly organized, and in highly 
specialized forms. It has frequently been suggested that the detailed 
memorization of capes and other contours where land and water join, so 
fully insisted on in earlier nineteenth-century textbooks, represented a 
survival of the "navigational" geography that must have been widely read 
and studied in New England during the first sixty years of that century. 

Meteorology is sometimes considered a branch of geography. That 
subject, as well as some selected portions of physiography, — -local phe- 
nomena of erosion, sub-surface water movements, and the like, — might 
very properly be required as "related sciences" in vocational schools of 
farming. Possibly prospective farmers — not the students who attend 



536 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

agricultural colleges, most of whom will become agricultural specialists 
rather than "dirt farmers" — might also in their vocational schools study 
certain selected phases of economic geography with a view to better appre- 
ciation of possible cooperative integration of their production with similar 
kinds in other regions, as v/ell as some of the problems of distribution 
of such products. 

Objectives of geography in social education, as elective in secondary 
schools, may be few but very important, for specific purposes yet to be 
defined, (a) For purposes of liberalizing and rendering socially construc- 
tive appreciations of our own variegated racial membership, the social 
geographic backgrounds of England, Italy, Russia, Japan, Ireland, Ger- 
many, American Indians, negroes, etc., can be studied to advantage, (b) 
Toward promotion of international harmonies, appreciation studies of 
economic, governmental, and cultural qualities of rivaling and other 
peoples are readily practicable, (c) Certain larger international problems 
of citizenship — territorial specialization of production, migration of 
peoples, tariffs, international payments in gold, acculturation, sanitation, 
etc. — require background or basic knowledge that is essentially geographic. 
(d) Similarly, certain large problems of national and state citizenship — 
localization of production, urbanization of populations, development of 
means of transportation, racial or case segregation, conservation of natural 
resources, large-scale sanitation, etc. — have their strongly geographic 
aspects, which in some cases might be reached through studies of civic 
problems in other cases prepared for by topical selection and emphasis 
(if purposive) in geography courses. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Branom, M. E. and F. K. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. 1-4, The 

Practical Nature of Geography and Its Relation to Other Subjects; 

Ch. 5, Aims or Purposes in Teaching Geography). 
Brigham, a. p. Geographic Influences in American History. 
Brigham and McFarlane. Essentials of Geography: A Manual for 

Teachers. 
Dodge and Kirchwey. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. i, The Scope 

and Purpose of Geography Teaching). 
Galpin, C. J. Rural Life (Ch. i, Physical Influences; Ch. 2, Psychology 

of Farm Life). 
Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 21, School Geography). 



GEOGRAPHY 537 

McMuRRY, C. G. special Method in Geography (Ch. i, The Aim and 

General Character of Geography). 
Redway, J. W. The New Basis of Geography (Ch. 12). 
Smith, E. E. Teaching Geography by Problems (Ch. 2, The New 

Geography). 
Sutherland, W. J. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. 6, The Aims of 

Geography Study). 
Trotter, S. The Social Function of Geography (Fourth Yearbook, 

National Society for Scientific Study of Education). 
Wallas, B. C. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. i, The Scope of 

School Geography). 



CHAPTER XL 

CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE- HISTORY STUDIES 

A. CIVIC EDUCATION IN GENERAL 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

CIVIC Education, defined as that division of social education which is 
designed primarily to promote effective "large-group"' social relation- 
ships, must be greatly extended, developed, and improved during the next 
few years, if current aspirations and needs for better government, better 
economic cooperations, and better international relationships are to be 
realized. Little dissent to that thesis will now be found anywhere among 
well informed and generously disposed men. 

In spite of the fact that some forms of conscious civic education are 
centuries, if not thousands of years, old, we to-day know very little regard- 
ing the specific objectives, the means, or the methods of civic education 
as that must be adapted to the needs of a democracy and to the require- 
ments of truth-telling and general fair dealing among men living much 
in large groups which permit few personal relationships. Historic forms 
of civic education have commonly been guided by opportunistic interpre- 
tations of the principle, "The end justifies the means." They have been 
used to sustain dynasties, to minister to narrow nationalisms, and to carry 
parties into power. "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." 
"Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name." "My country, right 
or wrong." These are echoes from narrow civism. 

We may not criticize too severely these past practices. A king or 
party or militant nation may often have been and done wrong; but at 
least they gave points of crystallization for "large-group" sentiments, 
ideals, programs. But, in the fuller light of to-day, we can declare those 
attitudes and means insufficient for our purposes. We may no longer 
wrest history away from the truth for the sake of patriotic propaganda. 
We ought not to nurture, in children fear and hatred of neighbors for the 
sake of more compact herd cooperation. 

All societies of which we have historic records have had government 
and politics. The men who first settled America brought v/ith them 
many well defined ideas and sentiments regarding charters and laws, 
public meetings and suffrage, kings and governors, free citizens and bonds- 
men. On these foundations they and their successors built the political 
systems of the United States. Far-reaching ideals — of various kinds of 
liberty, of a democratic citizenship, of close control. of governors by the 
electorate — have played large parts in the construction of these systems; 

538 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 539 

and so have practical necessities — of accepting expert advice in all depart- 
ments of government, of restraining liberties in times of necessity, and 
of giving large powers, however unwillingly, to the man who, as natural 
aristocrat, boss, or politician, gives ability and industry to the study and 
pursuit of politics. 

Most of us, born and reared in this political system, take it for granted 
much as we take air and the seasons, and the topography of our home 
region, for granted. We acquire understanding of it, and we accept our 
responsibilities for it, piecemeal, and often with little curiosity or under- 
standing. The social psychologist might well wonder that, blundering 
along thus, the American people has succeeded at all in state-building. 

1. From the standpoint of good civic membership in city, state, and nation, 
what do you regard as your greatest civic merits ? Your most serious civic 
"shortages" ? In what respects do you expect to be a better citizen, poHti- 
cally, ten years hence ? 

2. If you had opportunity to give one year to a careful study of economics, 
in what ways is it probable that you would be a better citizen because of that ? 
In what ways does it appear that further study of the history of our nation 
during the years 1763 to 1865 would make you able to perform your civic 
duties more effectively? 

3. Review and analyze some of your "civic participations" during recent 
years. Begin with your "conformities," that is, your own submissions to law 
and order. Have you had occasion to try to induce or force others so to submit 
to laws? What positive contributions have you made to public opinion? If 
you have voted, analyze some of the "public ends" that such voting was de- 
signed to serve ? 

4. What acute current problems of government are essentially economic? 
Separately consider : tariffs and protection ; farm loans and other governmental 
aid demanded by farmers ; governmental regulations of railway rates ; effects 
of different methods of taxation; governmental intervention in contests of 
"labor and capital." 

5. Trace to their foundations in social and other sciences problems of public 
policy involving detention, care, education, and other treatment of adult crimi- 
nals; juvenile criminals; mental defectives; widows and dependents; va- 
grants and unemployables ; the crippled; the blind; and the deaf. 



CIVIC EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS 

The means of civic education in schools may for the present be con- 
sidered under two heads — the indirect, and the direct. Under the former 
should be included reading (literary), history, geography, and school 
government. Under the second we include civil government, community 



540 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

civics, economics, sociology, social problems, service projects, and dra- 
matic projects. 

Civic education, it must be recalled, resembles physical education, and 
training in oral English, in that a large part of it is inevitably accom- 
plished outside of schools. The functions of the schools are, therefore, 
residual, that is, the schools — from kindergarten to college — must dis- 
cover the defects or shortages of extra-school education and atone or 
compensate for these. This may mean teaching some things that can 
not effectively be acquired outside. It may mean, as in the case of 
English pronunciation, correcting bad habits formed elsewhere. It 
may mean giving ideals as counterpart to what the world gives in ex- 
perience. 

THE MEANS OF CIVIC EDUCATION 

Where specific forms of civic education have been employed for some 
years, evaluation of their results is very much needed. Where they are 
of only recent development, further experimentation in adapting them to 
various grades and to different classes of learners is essential. Current 
problems are suggested by these questions : 

1. What "transfers" of the civic attitudes, ideals, and insights appropriate 
to "large-group" membership derive from effective "small-group" education? 

2. What contributions to right civic behavior in adult life can be derived 
from various forms of school discipline? 

3. What results probably accrue from training in literacy, and can these 
be improved materially in our more progressive states? 

4. What valuable contributions toward education for civic participation pos- 
sibly come from present courses in history; and how can these be improved? 

5. Does geography as now taught make substantial contributions to civic 
appreciation, insight, or ideal? 

6. What valuable results are, or can be, derived from the study of (neigh- 
borhood) community civics, and where should this subject be taught? 

7. Can we and should we teach "economics" in elementary or high schools ? 

8. Can we and should we try to teach some form of "sociology" in these 
schools ? 

9. Can "service projects" be extensively developed as means of civic edu- 
cation ? 

10. Can "exploratory projects" be made serviceable? 

11. What are the possibilities of "dramatic" projects? 

12. What are the contributions of such semi-school forms of education as 
scouting, summer camps, and clubs? 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 541 



FOUNDATIONS IN MORAL EDUCATION 

Moral education, defined as including primarily those forms of social 
education which are designed to promote right small-group relationships, 
is only in a small measure a practicable function of day schools. The major 
factors in all small-group relationships, except those essential to the 
proper functioning of school groups, must be produced in the family, the 
church, the neighborhood, and under other conditions where face-to-face 
cooperations are initiated and must be developed. 

The functions of schools in moral education are, therefore, residual 
in the main. They are still greatly in need of analytical study and 
evaluation. In a measure, they resemble the functions of the school 
in physical education. In both the school is in a poor position to train — 
towards moral or health practice ; but it may prove able to do much by 
giving moral enlightenment or insight; and it may recover again some of 
the importance it once had in days when authoritarian controls were efifec- 
tive — by becoming a source of "spreading" moral aspirations and ideals. 
But the school will have to learn to produce and expand moral ideals in ac- 
cordance with the conditions — -and, for purposes here under discussion, the 
limitations as well — of democracy and free thinking. Unless some great 
reversal of social evolution should take place, we shall not revive the 
authoritarian controls under which the pre-scientific social order was 
founded and erected. 

Certain essential foundations of civic education are without question 
found in the results of moral education, but the social psychology of these 
is yet obscure. Our thinking is baffled here, in large part, by the general 
use of abstract terms from the vernacular- — the very vagueness of which 
often seems welcome to the "aspirationalists" who now take so prom- 
inent a part in the discussion of moral and civic education. As shown 
elsewhere, such words as "loyalty," "patriotism," "Americanism," 
"probity," "altruism," "tolerance," "democracy," "Christianity," "free- 
dom," and scores of others are essentially balloons that can be filled by 
almost any kind of "hot air" at the will of the user. As commonly used in 
propagandistic writing (often seeking realization of Utopian objectives), 
they are as sadly in need of deflation as Bolshevik currency. 

In our present ignorance of the interconnections between moral and 
civic education, the only safe course is to lend all the encouragement we 
can to sound moral education, whilst at the same time reserving time 
and means to produce those civic virtues that are not only tangibly essen- 



542 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tial to "large-group" harmony, but are in varying degree antagonistic to 
the intenser "small-group" interests as ordinarily felt and even some- 
times approved. 

School discipline and order call chiefly for moral rather than civic 
qualities, but the public functions and character of the school gives this 
institution far more incentive and opportunity to idealise and generalise 
moral virtues toward their, cognate civic virtues than are practicable to 
household, church, neighborhood, and vocational groups. 

It is needless to examine here the sociological significance of the 
oligarchic controls that formerly prevailed in schools ; how these have 
generally given way to benevolent paternalisms ; and how, at present, 
educators (a few, at least) are bent on discovering ways of making 
school cooperations and other interdependencies democratic in outlook 
and operation. Probably there are many aspirationists who greatly ex- 
aggerate the practicability of making school cooperations large and im- 
portant means of civic education; but none can deny that there are con- 
siderable possibilities in that direction. 

General literacy represents, so far, the greatest single school achieve- 
ment toward civic competency. In many states, barring a few immigrants 
and extreme subnormals, we have attained that goal which rightly seemed 
so important to the founders of many, at least, of our commonwealths. 
It is probable that educators and social economists, in their keen percep- 
tion of civic shortages still to be overcome, and in their eagerness to press 
on to new goals, tend to undervalue the civic importance of universal 
literacy. But it must be ranked with sound family and neighborhood 
morality as among the indispensable foundations of the later and more 
specialized civic virtues. 

It remains completely to universalize literacy — and, in this country, to 
make it literacy in English for all but persons very well educated in other 
languages. Two other improvements are practicable — to establish reading 
powers with still less effort than is now required, especially for silent 
reading; and so to produce powers of literacy as to integrate with them 
interests in reading content. But all progressive teachers are now well 
on the road to these goals. 

B. CIVIC EDUCATION BY MEANS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

I. In what fields of history reading or study are you so interested that if 
you had free time you would gladly give considerable of it to study in these 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 543 

fields? Do you feel that you could do this alone, or would you need instruc- 
tion ? Are your interests essentially "cultural," or do they have some practical 
objectives? What are the latter? 

2. In vi^hich of the foUoviring fields of history do you feel that you are 
"reasonably" w^ell informed, and how have you become so : the American 
Civil War; the two presidential terms of Woodrow Wilson; the Age of 
Pericles in Athens; the entire history of Brazil; the history of the settlement 
and upbuilding of your own state; the life and work of Gladstone? 

3. What kinds of contributions to knowledge or appreciation of historical 
events or personages seem to you easily to be derived from such fiction as : 
Cooper's Last of the Mohicans; Churchill's The Crossing ; Sienkiewicz's Quo 
Vadis; Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii; Dickens' Tale of Two Cities; Whar- 
ton's Age of Innocence f Do such fictional materials seem to help toward: 
(a,) the kinds of historical appreciations and insight that make for better 
citizenship; (b) cultural appreciations of value, even if the historical sugges- 
tions are largely unreal? 

4. Give ten dates, ten names of personages, five significant legislative events, 
five "population movement" events, and five inventions or discoveries within the 
United States between 1800 and 1900 that "every moderately well educated 
American should know" — that is, in connection with each of which he should 
have in memory some exact facts, some vivid associations, some fairly ade- 
quate valuations. 

5. Which of your most definitely matured "civic understandings" seem to 
have been considerably affected by your studies of (a) history, or (&) geogra- 
phy? Your civic aspirations? Your civic ideals? Your civic attitudes — ^that 
is, deeply rooted convictions, beliefs, prejudices? 

HISTORY AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE 

Any general or special science that deals primarily with men in their 
social relationships will here be called a "social science." Sociology is 
the most general of these, standing toward economics, ethnology, and 
politics very much as biology stands toward bacteriology, parasitology, 
physiology, and botany. Economics is a social science centering in 
man's relationships to wealth or life-supporting services and commodities. 
Civics deals primarily with men's interdependencies in social control, and 
especially through government. Education, penology, ethnology, an- 
thropology, eugenics, theology, and others are, obviously, ancillary social 
sciences. 

History is commonly a social science in so far as it records, describes, 
and interprets social relationships. Paleontology includes large amounts 
of one kind of history, but not social history. Histories of dynasties, 



544 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

nations, migrations, races, and religions are social histories. But history- 
is primarily descriptive of "unique events," whilst the other social sciences 
aim at discovery and interpretation of general principles or laws.^ 

Both history and geography can be made to serve dual roles in school 
education. They can be used for general culture, or purposively toward 
certain forms of civic education. But it is doubtful whether any par- 
ticular portions of either subject can profitably be made to serve both 
ends simultaneously and to good effect. This statement is made here 
with full appreciation of the fact that few educators would as yet admit 
its validity. Nevertheless, in testing it, they are recommended to define 
certain fairly specific objectives of civic education or of personal culture; 
then to select from history or geography such means as can be found best 
to contribute to the realization of these respective objectives; and finally 
to discover the effects of proper methods of teaching on the two different 
kinds of aims. 

The study of history especially ministers to these two somewhat dis- 
similar ends in education. Some history should certainly be studied pri- 
marily for culture — for the vision, interests, and appreciations that are 
worth while in themselves, or are essential means of further culture. 
Other kinds of history should be studied because they minister to the 
insights, appreciations, attitudes, ideals, and aspirations that make us 
good members of our social order — good citizens in a somewhat delimited 
sense of that much-abused word. 

The first kind of history — as a basis for culture — is the kind that 
most interests H. G. Wells, His Outline is a "survey" of the world, 
including its prehistoric reaches as far as evidence is available. While 
some portions of such history are essential as constituting a sort of 
vertebral column for the "social history" needed in the civic education 
of the typical citizen, we should not allow Wells' enthusiasm to delude 
us into thinking that more than a small proportion of the topics or 
materials of his Outline are essential to that end. The leaders, the pace- 
setters, the chosen opinion-givers of our citizenry, can well use the more 
abundant materials, of* course. But educators and textbook makers tend 
incessantly to overvalue chronological and remote history for the learner 
of average abilities and opportunities. 

History study of certain kinds has for ages been a potent agency in 
civic education. It has been the most powerful means of teaching love 
of country and contempt or hatred of alien nations. "The teaching of 

^ See Giddings, Studies in the Theory of Human Society, Ch. V., for an especially 
suggestive analysis of the relations of history to the other social sciences. 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 545 

history is responsible for the prevaiHng strong enmity between nations 
and races. In England (or America or Germany or Japan, too, of 
course) the history lesson commences with England, and they teach chil- 
dren that England is the best country in everything in the world, causing 
pupils to think others are their inferiors" (H. G. Wells). 

History study, as ordinarily conducted, — let us say in such countries 
as Germany and Japan, — does much to "set" feelings, sentiments, and 
appreciations. Especially does the uncritical mind of average caliber thus 
acquire valuations that are apt to endure for life. Modern historians 
have in large measure accepted the responsibilities and attitude of true 
scientists in writing history; but it can not be said that in the pre-colle- 
giate schools such attitudes control as yet in the teaching of the subject — 
nor, be it submitted, is it yet certain that practically they can or should. 

The history of every known kind of human — and even non-human— 
activity or evolution can, theoretically, be formulated and documented. 
Thus we often speak of the history of : the United States ; New York 
City; the New York Central railway station; the Astor family; the Poles 
in America ; European civilization ; the Crusades ; medicine ; iron and 
steel working ; Mediterranean commerce ; the French language. It would 
not be incorrect similarly to speak of the history of the Mississippi 
River, of Vesuvius, of the American bison, or of the Shakespearean 
foHos. Men write histories of literature, of Gothic architecture, of the 
steam engine, and of Wagnerian music. 

The first test of the scientific character of any history is, obviously, 
its faithful report of particular details and events. An acceptable history 
of the life of Robert E. Lee or of the building of Brooklyn Bridge, or 
of the Arabs of the tenth century must give names, dates, and other 
records of facts in correspondence with "the truth." The basic affliction 
of history as record and report is invention or misreporting of its items. 
In this respect history can be compared to bookkeeping. The first essen- 
tial is record of items, transactions, data — without organization and with- 
out interpretation, if need be. Given intelligible record of items in either 
history or accounting, subsequent readers can organize and interpret such 
data so as to reach conclusions as needed by them. But if the original 
entries are forged or distorted the situation becomes fairly hopeless. 

The second test, doubtless, of the scientific character of any history 
is to be found in its organization of data. Because so much of the events 
of history occurred in time sequences, we think of the chronological order 
as of first importance. Next is the territorial or regional organization, 
which often merges into a political group or nationalistic organization. 



546 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Again, useful purposes are often served by arranging the data of history 
in easily apprehended relations to some outstanding event or personality. 

The third test of the scientific treatment of history is found in the 
sufficient and scientific interpretations of the relationships of the event 
to other prior, contemporary, and subsequent events. Here history clasps 
hands with the other social sciences. Since all the social sciences except 
history are of comparatively modern origin, it follows that the elder 
historians interpreted their historical materials as well as they could in 
the light of the then prevalent traditions and speculations — religious, 
political, and philosophical. Doubtless every historical thinker after 476 
A.D. tried to find the causes of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. 
Some of the proximate causes lay visibly on the surface of things ; but 
the causes of these causes have interested speculative thinkers to this 
day. Perhaps every social reformer, from the man inveighing against 
slavery, land tenantry, or childlessness, to anti-monarchist and anti-Chris- 
tian, has used the "fall of Rome" as a signal instance of the effects of 
the ills they desired to cure. 

The widespread appeal made by Wells' Outline of Universal History 
(1921) is probably due in large measure to the freshness, scope, and lucid 
presentation of his numerous interpretations of past events in terms of 
the interests and prevailing ideas of 1920. Few persons are deeply in- 
terested in the history of any remote period or event "for its own sake." 
But many are interested in any remote thing if it brings light and fuller 
understanding to contemporary interests. 

This fact suggests at once that no historian can more than partially 
interpret his historical materials when he writes. The thinkers of each 
new generation bring new means of interpretation to the study of old 
problems. Now that we know the relation between certain mosquitoes 
and malaria, students are trying to ascertain the probability that at some 
early date these mosquitos were imported to the swamps around Rome 
and thus caused the malaria which devastated those regions. Freudian 
psychoanalysis suggests new interpretations of the careers of Julius 
Caesar, St. Jerome, Da?nte, and Napoleon. A well known student of 
climatology thinks that the greatness of Mediterranean countries from 
1500 B.C. to 500 A.D. was greatly due to favoring climates, which have 
since changed for the worse. ^ Now that a half-century or more of writing 
and study of economics and ethnology in the light of sociology gives us an 
extensive knowledge of social origins, social processes, and social struc- 

^ See E. Huntington, World-Power and Evolution. 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 547 

tures, there develops a rapidly growing tendency to try to interpret much 
of history in terms of sociological principles and laws. 

HISTORY AS A SCHOOL SUBJECT 

History in the lower grades of schools is now usually taught by what 
are here called the methods of "developmental readings." But in upper 
grades and high schools little progress has yet been made away from the 
highly didactic methods long characteristic of the subject, except where 
an exceptionally resourceful teacher, having available a quantity of library, 
source, and other "laboratory" materials, is disposed and able to set 
students at the work of learning in ways resembling those employed by the 
original writers of history itself. For the majority of upper-grade pupils 
"learning" history means the memorizing of textual statement, and un- 
critical acceptance of textual data and generalizations. 

The same method still prevails largely in the other social sciences. All 
the well known texts in civil government consist chiefly of condensed 
descriptions of the structures and functions of political or other large 
social mechanisms, supplemented by some formal exhortations to pro- 
spective citizens as to their obligations and opportunities through civic 
participation. These didactic texts vary considerably in the vividness 
and simplicity of their topics, in the extent to which they include or exclude 
topics relevant to every-day civic performance, and as respects concrete 
"setting" and "dressing." But even at their best they are not, and 
can not be, "readable" in the sense used when we speak of "readable" 
books of travel, biography, or fiction. They leave the student little to 
find out for himself ; they set him no tasks except .the dreary one of 
"comprehending" and "committing" formal and condensed statements of 
the text. 

"Didactic methods" of presentation are, of course, of very great service 
to learning. Every cyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, scientific treatise, and 
historical work of reference is obviously made effective largely by the 
adequacy of the didactic form upon which its assemblage and organization 
of material is based. The ordinary textbooks in civil government or in 
American history used in our schools would be very serviceable as books 
of reference for learners seeking specific information to supply needs de- 
veloped through other contacts. 

The objectives of history study in schools are still obscure. Hence 
contemporary difficulties in determining the place, scope, and methods 



548 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of teaching the various divisions of the subject. Can history study be 
made to give important contributions to civic education? On the other 
hand, hoiv much of cultural mastery is enough as a minimum, let us say 
for elementary-school pupils of less than average abilities ? These prob- 
lems can be given more comprehensive statement by analysis of a "case- 
group." 

Let us take a case-group of boys found in the seventh grade of any 
large junior high school or elementary school. The case-group here con- 
sidered consists of pupils who are below the median in intelligence, and 
they come from social environments of less than average cultural oppor- 
tunities. Virtually none of these pupils will be found attending full- 
time schools after fifteen. Most of them, after a few years in juvenile 
employments, will be found in skilled or semi-skilled urban trades, factory 
callings, transportation work, dock work, and the like. All will be inter- 
ested in politics, and nearly all will have families. Unless otherwise edu- 
cated, a large proportion will, as adults, read freely of newspapers and 
cheap magazines, and will freely patronize the "movies." Few will read 
substantial books, but they will be ambitious for the better schooling of 
their children. 

Assuming that we can count upon the attendance of these pupils only 
through seventh and eighth grades, what objectives in their study of his- 
tory should we set up? Accept current standards of "good schools" in 
the first six grades — including fairly extensive amounts of "develop- 
mental" history stories and biographies and small amounts of well defined 
"fact" history. 

Objectives in civic education primarily, rather than cultural educa- 
tion, will probably be demanded by most educators. By long custom, 
seventh- and eighth-grade history has largely centered in the intensive 
study of the history of our own country. Even more, it will seem, should 
that be the case with the boys now under consideration. 

But in what ways, if at all, can American history be studied so as to 
increase or improve the attributes of good citizenship? For the present 
we have only beliefs here. It is evident that several kinds of quite 
distinct qualities can be expected — definite knowledge, ideals, and ap- 
preciations. Which of these are important, and what kinds and degrees 
of each? The problems of objectives that these questions suggest are 
numerous and difficult. Here only certain provisional findings can be 
indicated.^ 

^ For more extensive discussion see Ch. X in D. Snedden, Sociological Deter- 
mination of Objectives in Education. 



CIVIC EDUCATION AND THE HISTORY STUDIES 549 



PROVISIONAL FINDINGS 

1. Minimum essentials of history should be taught in all grades, pri- 
marily for cultural purposes, but also as necessary scaffolding for civic 
education. These should be taught cumulatively, with every practicable 
graphic and other aiding device. There should be yearly review of 
essentials earlier learned, with yearly accessions. But the total time 
devoted to this subject should be small — perhaps not more than 3 to 5 
per cent, of all school time in any one year. Some dates, some personages, 
some salient events, some generalizations, should enter into this "scaf- 
folding" history — but never very much or many. Pedantic school men 
will always tend to ask too much. Most of the data of history we should 
leave where we now leave the materials that make up dictionaries, gazet- 
teers, and encyclopedias — ^provided we teach our pupils how to find it. 

2. Substantial amounts of history or allied materials should be offered 
as cultural education, on a flexible basis in the lower grades, and on an 
elective basis in the higher. No tangible contributions to civic efficiency 
should be expected from these sources, which should include hero tales, 
biographies, stories of interesting, even though very remote, events, his- 
torical fiction and poetry, moving pictures, and the like. Probably in 
grades 7 to 12 these should be offered as short unit courses, each center- 
ing in some attractive massive cultural objective. 

3. Some history should be offered, possibly part of it required at least 
in grades 7 to 12, primarily because it will contribute to civic apprecia- 
tions, powers, especially as these will be needed in the years ahead. 
^^.Imost never, probably, should this be either comprehensive, or to any 
material extent chronological, history. Rather it should originate in a 
series of vital current situations or problems on which it is practicable 
and profitable to have the learner go back for relevant historical origins, 
settings, and perspectives. If he can grasp the essentials of the con- 
temporary situation, he can interpret some, at least, of the reports of its 
corresponding and perhaps causative antecedent situations. Certainly, if 
he can not grasp present problems, he will find corresponding older ones 
hopelessly beyond any real comprehensions — which must be distinguished 
from the various "verbal" apprehensions with which history teachers 
must so often be content. 

4. Some "stiff" courses toward projective objectives may well be 
offered as electives in high schools, as cultural studies for persons having 
tastes and abilities for such offerings. 



550 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS AND REPORTS 

Allen, J. W. The Place of History in Education (Ch. 8, Why Edu- 
cate?). 
Bourne, H. E. The Teaching of History and Civics in the Elementary 

and Secondary Schools (Ch. i, The Meaning- of History; Ch. 5, The 

Value of History; Ch. 9, The Facts of Most Worth). 
Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 16, Pedagogy of History). 
Hinsdale, B. A. How to Study and Teach History (pp. 1-26). 
Johnson, H. Teaching of History (Ch. i, What History Is; Ch. 3, The 

Question of Aims and Values). 
JuDD, C. H. Psychology of High School Subjects (Ch. 16, History). 
Keatinge, M. W. Studies in the Teaching of History (Ch. i, Problems 

of Methods and Values; Ch. 9, History and Poetry). 
Kendall and Stryker. History in the Elementary School (Ch. i, The 

Value of History). 
Mace, W. H. Methods in History (See sections on: The Elementary 

Phases of History; and, History in High Schools). 
Robinson, J. H. The New History. 
Seeley, J. R. Methods of Teaching History, Pedagogical Library, 

Vol. I. 
Simpson, Mabel E. Supervised Study in American History (Part II, 

Illustrated Lessons, Problem and Other Methods). 
Sutherland, W. J. The Teaching of Geography (Ch. 5, The Relation 

of Geography to History). 
Wayland, J. W. How to Teach American History (Ch. 8, A Summary 

of Aims for the Grades). 



CHAPTER XLI 

CIVIC EDUCATION THROUGH THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 
AND OTHER MEANS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT has been studied more or less irregularly in 
public schools for more than half a century. Since 1880 the social 
sciences have made remarkable progress in all American colleges. Soci- 
ology, the youngest of the inclusive sciences, is now being studied by scores 
of thousands of students in higher institutions. Attempts have been made 
to teach it, as well as economics and derivative "social problem" subjects 
in secondary schools. 

1. In what ways, as far as you can see, have your studies of civil govern- 
ment and the other non-historical social sciences contributed to your present 
civic efficiency ? Consider separately : your civic conformities ; the ideals which 
animated you in war-time ; your abilities to "vote right" on intricate public 
questions; the direction and force of your civic influence on others in election 
campaigns. 

2. What are some of the "social problems" that now most vex American 
politics? Does it seem to you that the social sciences already contain the 
solutions of these problems? 

3. Why does it seem important to you that prospective voters should know 
something of : the advantages to labor of the "closed shop" ; the relations of 
city housing to rates of tuberculosis; the cost of keeping incarcerated crimi- 
nals; American trade with South America? 

4. What seem to you some of the respects in which the defects of municipal 
government are like malaria — preventable if citizens will only take action? 
In what .respects are other municipal problems like influenza — unpreventable 
and incurable, because science does not yet know causes, methods of trans- 
mission, or cure? 

5. There are many social problems that tend to become political problems 
— that is, as necessitating governmental action. What are your opinions on 
those given below, and how valid do you think these opinions to be, on such 
questions as: 

a. The soundness of the policy of giving pensions out of public funds to 
widows with children? 

551 



552 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

b. The wisdom of having the Interstate Commerce Commission fix freight 
rates on railroads? 

c. The desirability and feasibility of compulsory arbitration in case of dis- 
putes between labor unions and corporations? 

d. The wisdom of providing colleges or universities in large cities? 

e. The wisdom of permanently segregating women of very low mental 
powers ? 

CIVICS IN SCHOOLS^ 

Civics, the science of civil government, is like economics in the range 
of its facts and interpretations. Some of these can be taught to seven- 
year-olds, others are clearly beyond the grasp of high-school seniors. 
Educators have recently confused our terminologies here by popularizing 
the somewhat tautalogical term "community civics," under the mistaken 
assumption that the word community means local neighborhood, or pri- 
mary community — a mistake also made by many contemporary writers on 
"community centers," "community festivals," and "community coopera- 
tion." The fact is, of course, that in any adequate meaning of the term 
the United States, California, or New York City are "communities" no 
less than are a village, a rural area of twenty families, or a city block — 
and sometimes considerably more so, when measured by the vital coopera- 
tions actually involved. 

What shall be taught from civics in elementary and secondary schools? 
It seems generally agreed that we have overdone our teaching of political 
anatomies — the structures and functions of governmental mechanisms. 
The parallels to be drawn with physical education are obvious. Years 
ago, desiring so to educate children that, as men and women, they could 
and would conserve and promote their own physical well-being, educators 
devised for the schools courses in physiology and hygiene. But for years 
these gave too much physiology, and too little hygiene — too much didactic 
teaching of structures and functions of bones, muscles, nerves, and organs, 
and too little training in ideals, insights, and practices of hygiene. As 
in the teaching of grammar, it was, of course, urged that such technical 
knowledge was essential to right practice; but the absurdity of these con- 
tentions now becomes slowly manifest. 

Occasionally in civic practice it becomes urgent that some part of 

*For fuller analysis consult D. Snedden, Ciznc Education; Its Sociological 
foundations. Also his Sociological Determination of Objectives in Education 
(Ch. II, The Objectives of Social Education). 



CIVIC EDUCATION THROUGH THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 553 

governmental machinery be reconstructed. Sometimes, in order to solve 
a practical civic problem, it is important to understand the operation of 
political machinery. But in modern pedagogy we do not compel the 
average learner to "learn" the dictionary or encyclopedia against the day 
of possible needs of bits of information about them. Our contemporary 
textbooks in civics are probably overloaded with "anatomical" details, and 
they rely altogether too heavily on strictly "didactic" methods. Some of 
the most promising present projects which seem to have been included as a 
sort of hasty afterthought. 

Probably some civics should be taught from grades 4 to 12 — but in 
each grade as short unit courses, possibly incorporated into "social prob- 
lems" or other courses. The essential substance of civics needs frequent 
review, though didactic presentations should be used sparingly. 

Neighborhood community civicsi — that is, of all the social environ- 
ment that is accessible to first-hand observation and comprehension by 
the learner — is now a well developed subject for the higher elementary- 
school grades. But does not much of it really belong in grades 4 to 6? 
Are not grades 7 and 8 ready for the more difficult "community civics" 
of state and nation, as some of the mechanisms and processes and many 
of the problems of these must be apprehended imaginatively and at long 
range? Most pupils must read about Albany and Washington and the 
governmental practices that are followed there; but they can visit the 
neighborhood police station or town hall and see government of some 
kinds in operation. 

ECONOMICS IN SCHOOLS 

It is well known that a large proportion of modern political problems are 
essentially economic. Parties divide about tarifiFs, public control of bank- 
ing policies, the coinage of silver, municipal ownership of street-car sys- 
tems, compulsory arbitration of wage rates, and the issuance of bonds for 
public improvements. 

It is obvious that the rank and file of voters are very ignorant of the 
principles of economics. But so, apparently, are also the large majority 
of legislators, editors, and others who have enjoyed a college education. 
The mercantilist doctrines, to the correction of which Adam Smith de- 
voted much of his writings, are still held in effect by a large proportion 
of voters and their leaders, who, in matters of foreign trade, would both 
have their cake and eat it, too. 



554 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Wars, even in recent years, doubtless spring from many sources ; but 
probably the basic one is some form of real or imagined economic oppres- 
sion. 

If the people of the United States should ever break into warring fac- 
tions, it will probably be the result of economic cleavages between labor 
and capital, soil producers and fabricators, city and country, East and 
West. The Civil War was consciously fought for a moral issue on the 
part of the North, and a strictly political issue on the part of the South; 
but economic factors played a large role among the deeper provocative 
causes. 

Economics should, then, clearly be one of the studies in civic education. 
Where ? Toward what specific ends ? How much ? By what methods ? 
But what is scientific economics? Let us not be misled by the "perfec- 
tionists." Some scientific economics is simple enough to be taught to 
eight-year-olds ; some of it is too abstruse for college undergraduates. 
As in every other science, the immature as well as the less able-minded 
must first be supplied with concrete data and aided in deducing simple 
relationships. In the geography of the intermediate grades we to-day 
teach, or simulate the teaching of, a host of important economic facts. 
Children from ten to twelve years of age can readily be helped to an 
understanding of many facts and principles regarding wages, trade, thrift, 
and economic utilization. The large laws they can, of course, no more 
grasp realistically than they can the sphericity of the earth or the causes 
of the tides ; but they will readily accept- them from authoritative sources, 
as they now accept the generalizations of bacteriologists and grammarians. 

The conclusion is obvious. Economics, like mathematics, physics, or 
biology, is a vast reservoir from which may be drawn materials suited 
to all ages and varieties of intelligence. It is the business of a scientific 
pedagogy to find the materials adapted to any stage of learning ability and 
for known civic needs. We should no more teach general economics in 
elementary or secondary schools than we should teach "pure" mathematics 
or chemistry. Our concern here, on behalf of the multitude, is with appli- 
cations — applications of demonstrated utility and "teachableness." 

Probably we should avoid "didactic" methods at all pre-college stages — 
that is, methods of direct and formal statement of facts or settled findings, 
verbal memorization of dry generalizations, in a word, "formal inculca- 
tion." For some purposes "problems" of a very thought-provoking and 
"principle-building" character can certainly be worked out. Perhaps still 
greater opportunities exist for the development by some pedagogic genius 
of a "case method" adapted to various grades of learning ability. Prob- 



CIVIC EDUCATION THROUGH THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 555 

ably a few "service projects" can be developed, as well as a few explor- 
atory projects; but, in the main, these are to be taken as relishes rather 
than for civic calories. 



CIVIC EDUCATION THROUGH PROJECTS, PROBLEMS, CASES, AND READINGS 

Educators, in their preoccupations with customary school practices, 
need to guard constantly against overlooking significant results in extra- 
school education. Especially important is such watchfulness in those 
fields where the functions of the schools are essentially residual, which 
is still largely true in civic education. Good citizens — in the political 
sense — were made long before there were schools. Many of the best 
citizens in our midst to-day owe little of their distinctively civic qualities 
and powers to their school education, beyond their literacy and their 
perspectives in history and geography. 

Can schools partially annex or otherwise utilize some of these extra- 
school procedures? Can schools infuse into them somewhat more of 
larger purposiveness or lend them support? Or can they bring down 
into school years for educative purposes "large-group" activities that 
normally find expression in adult years? 

Toward these ends many experiments are now being studied. Scout- 
ing represents far more than an experiment. The project method in 
several forms is being tried. Civic self-education outside the school takes 
place largely through readings and discussions — and experience shows that 
these can be adapted to schools. The responsibilities of citizens commonly 
confront them immediately as cases and problems. Schools have only 
slightly experimented with problem and case methods yet, but these un- 
questionably hold large possibilities. 

Civic projects in schools are of several kinds — service, dramatic, ex- 
ploratory, and planning. It is not easy to find and to adapt genuine 
service projects, and apparently the difficulties increase directly as does 
density of population, since this municipalization entails specialization of 
employed service. In sparsely settled areas service projects in such public 
utilities as road repair, fire protection, school ground and schoolhouse 
repair or beautification, flood relief, policing, poor relief, and the like, are 
practicable. Local Boy Scouts organizations have discovered various con- 
venient service projects. 

Dramatization projects have long been used in lower grades in con- 
nection with commemoration festivals, pageants, and the like. In civics 
classes such public functions as elections, naturalization, jury trials, legis- 



556 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

lative sessions, and installation of officials have often been dramatized. 
The "school city" and other mechanisms of "school self-government" are 
more often functional as dramatic than as service projects. The flag 
salute and other representations found in progressive schools for small 
children are essentially dramatic. 

Exploratory projects have proved vital means toward certain forms of 
civic education of older pupils. Visits to courts, legislative halls, custom- 
houses, warships, army posts, city laboratories, waterworks, hospitals, and 
other centers of public service are valuable where practicable. Similar 
visits to significant centers of larger private economic activities are hardly 
less important in giving realistic backgrounds of civic appreciation — 
mines, power plants, docks, freightyards, newspaper printing establish- 
ments, packing houses, department stores, and the like. 

Planning and experimental projects have yielded few returns yet in 
civic education. Planning projects are of doubtful utility at best, and 
should be tolerated only where it is manifestly impracticable to carry plans 
into execution. True experimental projects may be suited, as yet, only 
to the sciences that are farther evolved than are the social sciences. 

The project method has a place in civic education, but there is no 
certainty yet that it is a large place. It may be very important as a means 
of giving realistic appreciations. Some educators look to it as a promising 
source of civic ideals, but it is questionable whether these expectations 
can be realized except when a very superior teacher intermediates — and in 
that case good civic education is assured by any method. But here we 
must await further developments in social psychology. 

The primary purpose of civic education toward the initiatory, as con- 
trasted with the conformist, civic virtues consists in developing and train- 
ing well disposed persons as utilizers — -utilizers of civic services as given 
by representatives and employed specialists, and of civic policies as these 
derive from any source whatever. 

In actual extra-school life such utilizers' education now proceeds con- 
stantly through diffusion of ideas, sentiments, and appreciations in gossip, 
debate, campaign speech making, press, magazine, and bulletin. 

Schools find it difficult to organize these pervasive and fine means. The 
academic mind naturally wants its means nicely capsuled into readily 
portable textbooks, notwithstanding omnipresent evidence of the fact that 
"the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 

Didactic or formal academic methods have a place in civic education, 
but it is a secondary place, at least for learners under sixteen years of 
age — and perhaps for any but superior minds. We must find other than 



CIVIC EDUCATION THROUGH THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 557 

didactic means of realizing the essentially projective objectives of right 
civic education, as well as in contributing to the abundant developmental 
objectives that are now easily visible. 

The subject is too complex to admit of analysis here. But it is the 

writer's conviction that within a few years virtually all present means of 

civic education for ages twelve to eighteen will be superseded by methods 

' in which the means of most importance can readily be grouped under three 

chief heads: (a) General readings; (b) Problems; and (c) Case problems. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Ames, E. W. and Eldred, A. Community Civics (Ch. 1-9). 

Baden-Powell, R. Girl Guiding. 

Baden-Powell, R. Scoutmastcrship (Ch. 1-5, Aims). 

Bourne, H. E. The Teaching of History and Civics (Ch. 6, The Aim 
in Teaching Civics; Ch. 20, The Teaching of Civics). 

CoE, G. A. A Social Theory of Religious Education (Part III, Psy- 
chological Background of Socialized Religious Education). 

FiSKE, G. W. Boy Life and Self -Government. 

FouiLLEE, A. Education from a National Standpoint (Book I, Ch. 3, 
The Objects of Intellectual and Moral Education from National 
Standpoint). 

Haines, C. G. (ed.). The Teaching of Government (Ch. 3, The Pur- 
pose). 

Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 24, Civic Education). 

Hall, G. S. Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene (-Ch. 7. and 9, 
Faults and Crimes, and Growth of Social Ideals). 

Haynes, J. Economics in Secondary Schools. 

Hill, M. The Teaching of Civics (Ch. i, Civic Education in Schools). 

Inglis, a. Principles of Secondary Education (Ch. 16, The Place of 
the Social Sciences). 

Lee, Joseph. Play in Education (Book V, The Age of Loyalty). 

MooRE, E. C. What Is Education? (Ch. 8, Learning by Problem Getting). 

Scott, Colin. Social Education (Ch. 6, 7, Self-Organized Group Work). 

Sumner, W. G. Folkways (Ch. 15, The Mores Can Make Anything 
Right). 

TuELL, H. E. The Study of Nations (Part I, Purposes). 

Ward, W. L. Student Participation in School Government. 



CHAPTER XLII 
THE . MENTAL SCIENCES 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE general science of psychology is steadily developing a variety 
of special sciences, "pure" and applied. These promise to become 
of very great importance in bringing order and efficiency into the lives 
of men. As methods of teaching become science-based instead of cus- 
tomary, they will necessarily rest on psychology. Medicine, labor employ- 
ment, and the treatment of antisocial individuals must discover some of 
their essential foundations in special applications of psychology. Women 
as home-makers and as mothers of children will, obviously, become in- 
creasingly dependent upon scientific knowledge of psychical processes, in 
proportion as it is found that instincts and customs are insufficient bases 
for their work under the conditions and standards of civilized societies. 
Hundreds of thousands of young men, eager to advance themselves in 
business, even now are making use of a variety of crude devices in "self- 
education." 

1. Recalling- your experience with yourself and others, what are some of the 
instinctive manifestations that have especially impressed you — anger, affection, 
desire for property, curiosity, and the like? Show how society — through 
parents, teachers, associates — encourages some of these instinctive manifesta- 
tions and discourages others. What are some of the social instincts? Some 
individualistic instincts? Can these be "educated"? 

2. What valuable facts or principles of a psychological kind did you under- 
stand before fourteen years of age ? Separately consider : habit formation, 
control of emotions, devices of memorization, relations between powers of 
mental work and other physical conditions. 

3. Does it seem to you now that "ideals" can be taught? What kinds? 
When taught, do they apply to considerable ranges of conduct? In what 
respects can you most infltience the moral conduct of some of your associates ? 

4. Do you recognize among your associates individuals who in marked de- 
gree possess "trained minds" ? Do these trained minds serve to give effective- 
ness to all varieties of activities, or chiefly to a particular few? In what 
respects do you regard yourself having a "trained mind," and in what respects 
do you seem to be deficient? 

If the words "trained mind" are interpreted broadly to include trained 
powers of observation, of imagination, of concentration, and of reasoning, in 

558 



THE MENTAL SCIENCES 559 

what respects would you say that the typical Indian savage had a "trained 
mind"? The Eskimo? The frontiersman (consider as trapper and hunter)? 
The street urchin? 

What are some mental defects that we often associate with : literary genius ; 
great powers of business organization; the creative imagination of the in- 
ventor or the scientist; and the absorption of the artist? 

5. Is it your opinion that constant practice in the memorization of poetry 
ultimately leads to a very much increased facility in this field? Is it your 
opinion that prolonged study of poetry will greatly strengthen those powers 
that are called for in the solution of difficult mathematical problems? 

GENERAL MENTAL SCIENCE 

Can the mental sciences be taught in elementary and secondary schools? 
Is there any good reason why a "General Mental Science" should not be 
taught in any grade where "General Natural Science" or "General Social 
Science" can be taught? 

It may seem that we have no adequate background of experience from 
which to derive answers to these questions. It is probably true that no 
serious attempts have been made to adapt psychology to the mental 
powers of secondary-school pupils. But for many decades, perhaps cen- 
turies, certain phases of applied psychology have been much worked over 
with relatively young learners. Moral education has always concerned 
itself greatly with "habit formation." Competent teachers, and certainly 
not least those of such historic formal subjects as Latin and mathematics, 
have often tried to help their pupils learn "how to study." Various "self- 
help" books, too, have assembled and interpreted experiences that classify 
properly under the mental sciences. Every generation witnesses revivals 
of popular interest in phrenology and in "magical systems of memory 
training." Probably every ambitious student of a foreign language has 
experimented with devices for aiding memorization of vocabulary. 
Parents as well as teachers have always had to study, empirically, prob- 
lems of insuring attention, and others bearing upon the correction of bad 
habits. From time immemorial, parents, employers, educators, and other 
leaders have had to consider the "vocational placing" of young people — 
making selections, of course, by means of standards empirically arrived at. 
Vocational guidance now becomes an engrossing interest of many social 
economists, impressed, on the one hand, by the complexity of the modern 
economic environment, and on the other by the wide range of aptitudes 
actually found in young persons. 

The elective system, in schools from the fifth grade to the fifteenth 



56o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

raises perplexing questions of mental adaptation. All studies now favored 
in secondary school and college are probably good — but certainly they 
are not equally good for all learners. It is easy to say at any stage that 
students "are not old enough to choose" — but who else is there, under 
ordinary administrative conditions, to do the choosing for them? No 
one but Old Man Tradition, who is a stickler for prescriptions and uni- 
formities. 

A proper pedagogy of general natural science teaching, when 
evolved, will certainly point the way to the practicability of short unit 
courses in "General Mental Science." Some of these might well center 
in problems of "How to Study" — French, arithmetic, or sports, as the 
case may be. Some topics might center in observations of how others — 
from a kitten or a baby to a classmate — seem to learn toward certain 
specified ends. It may prove expedient to associate some psychological 
testing with the studies in vocational guidance as these are likely to be 
developed in junior and senior high schools. 

Probably it will be found desirable so to teach mental science that 
"subjective reference" be tempered and controlled — as is the necessity also 
with certain phases of physiology, hygiene, and even economics. The 
student should preferably look "out," not "in." He should see mental 
behavior (and its results) in others. He should be strongly predisposed 
by teachers against morbid self-evaluations^ — perhaps always in ado- 
lescence, and especially so if he tends toward introspectiveness. 

THE TRAINED MIND 

As stated earlier, educators may no longer rely upon the historic 
"panacea" doctrine of mental training. Neither can they use special 
dogmas based on the doctrine as goals and incentives in training students. 

All the more reason why students should early acquire knowledge and 
ideals as to the real possibilities of mental training. As long as we inter- 
pret these objectively and concretely, we are on entirely safe ground. 
Let any theoretic "spread" take care of itself if necessary. 

Mental testing now provides some means whereby parents and teachers 
may appraise the mental and other powers of learners — as wise coaches 
have long been doing in athletics. It is in the light of such appraisement 
that specific possibilities of mental training should be hereafter judged. 
The world always wants trained bodies, trained characters, trained minds 
— and it will need them in the future more than ever. Furthermore, real 
human happiness — as contrasted with that of a cabbage or a cow — 



THE MENTAL SCIENCES 561 

depends likewise upon trained bodies, moral character, and minds. Mental 
science study should give to all learners appreciations and understandings 
of these matters. . 

REQUIREMENTS FOR VOCATIONS 

Needs for "trained" powers are probably most acutely felt by adults 
in connection with the vocational demands of civilized life. (It can 
be assumed that, sociologically, the defensive practices of men who are 
not professional soldiers constitute, in time of public danger, auxiliary 
vocations.) If we subject to quantitative vocational analysis the scores 
of specific powers making up in middle life the '/success" or vocational 
proficiency, respectively, of super-average barbers, gardeners, bookkeep- 
ers, salesmen, public office holders, cooks, job printers, teachers, surgeons, 
chauffeurs, shoe-factory operatives, coal-miners, sailors, actors, and the 
like, we shall find that each class stands high 'in respect to certain fairly 
clear, and often very specific, powers of observation, concentration, imag- 
ination, memory, precision, and the like. These have been produced, 
upon plasticities given by heredity, through prolonged "vocational train- 
ing" — at first imposed from without by vocational school, apprentice- 
ship, or foreman, and later by efforts largely self-directed. 

Practically all workers are employed under supervision in their early 
years. Employers are always searching, naturally, for the "most promising 
material" — the worth of which is commonly much more due to heredity 
or early home environment, and much less to schooling, than either edu- 
cators or employers usually think. The best available youth or young 
manhood being found, there then begins focalization of attention, di- 
rected repetitive practice within delimited areas, elimination of ineffec- 
tive procedures, formation of specific skills, increase of specific knowl- 
edge, cultivation of particular appreciations and ideals — and in time 
we have the trained worker, the successful producer of economic utilities. 

It is obvious, of course, that every sucessful kind of vocational school, 
— for army officers, physicians, stenographers, elementary-school teach- 
ers, machinists, nurses, singers, waitresses, and poultry growers — simply 
•organizes, economizes, and intensifies the processes elsewhere carried on 
through apprenticeship or through enforced "pick-up" methods. Each 
vocational school works hard to produce those particular varieties of 
trained hand, trained speech, trained character, trained body, trained sense, 
or trained "mind" that experience shows successful practice of the 
particular vocation in view to require. (No harm need result from the 



562 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

use of these general catchwords, so long as we do not fall victims to 
their indeterminateness — so long, that is, as we stand ready mentally to 
supply the needed concrete qualifying terms when required.) 

Hence it should not prove difficult to determine for school purposes, 
at least qualitatively, the desirable objectives of "mental training" in 
vocational schools. (It may prove endlessly difficult to give them sci- 
entific quantitative formulation, however.) The processes of contempo- 
rary "job analysis" are showing the way. In the case of vocational 
schools with several decades of history behind them, "trial and success" 
processes have already done much, where not bafifled by long adherence 
to wrong principles of pedagogy — as witness the superiorities of the 
modern schools of law, nursing, and agriculture, among others. 

In some cases there will be found, in schools not devoted primarily to 
vocational education, pre- vocational subjects, properly so-called. Al- 
ready established examples are : algebra and trigonometry in high schools 
for prospective engineers; pre-medical biology and chemistry in Hberal 
arts colleges ; pre-machine-shop drafting in a few high schools ; and 
pre-commercial typewriting or penmanship in junior high schools. These 
are all necessarily elective offerings in the schools in which they are 
found. It is entirely proper that these pre-vocational subjects be pre- 
sented by such methods as will involve rigid forms of specific discipline 
appropriate to the vocational uses to which the resulting knowledge and 
technique shall later be put. 

REQUIREMENTS OF CIVIC LIFE 

Civic responsibilities of adults in modern democracies increase in 
number, and diversify in kind. For the proper discharge of these there 
should somewhere be found specific forms of mental discipline no less 
than of "moral discipline." Unfortunately, one of the obvious, but, 
we must hope, temporary, fruits of abundant democracy seems to be 
a quite general opposition to any form of close discipHne whatever, es- 
pecially among adolescent citizens. Not a few mature citizens are, indeed, 
in a sense "perpetual adolescents" in their hostility to rigorous control 
or training, physical or mental. 

For the present, however, first blame must attach to the schools rather 
than to citizens for the low state, as respects mental discipline, of that 
education which is expected to function primarily in more efiicient citi- 
zenship. What schools and colleges have offered as civic education — 
memorization and other drill on the anatomical details of history, verbal 



THE MENTAL SCIENCES 563 

study of the skeletal structures of national and state government, didactic 
presentation of the desiccated principles of economics — have usually 
lacked the essential characteristics of "functioning" disciplines. These 
studies have usually 'been hardly more realistic, vital, and convincingly 
"related to life" than have been algebra, Latin, and the eighteenth-century 
classics. We ought to be able to devise better discipline than these, and we 
can, given an appreciation of the need, and time for experimental vi^ork. 
The following are submitted as examples of right objectives carrying their 
own suggestions of method : 

a. The citizen to-day must act largely in the light of the suggestions 
coming to him from the press. In federate societies, where nearly all 
legislative, executive, and judicial functions must be discharged by repre- 
sentatives, most of whom the voter has never met, and where proposals 
of policy, originating from a few creative minds, must be widely dis- 
cussed and criticized, the individual citizen is very dependent upon what 
he reads. 

The socially efficient citizen of to-day — that is, the citizen whose con- 
tributions to public opinion and practice through discussion and voting 
make for good public attitudes, good government, and social well-being 
generally — is the citizen who brings to his civic reading one large variety 
of that multifarious group of disciplines comprehended under the omni- 
bus term "scientific method." He lives in the midst of the persuasions 
of daily, weekly, and monthly journals of more or less partizan bias. He 
is incessantly beset by the suggestions of newspaper headlines, the legends 
and cartoons of billboards, and the subtle arguments of editorials. He 
is like a judge listening to the arguments of opposed attorneys and the 
biased testimony of witnesses, some of whom, at least, he can well suspect 
of deliberate dishonesty. 

It is through this maze of printed suggestion that the efficient citizen 
laboriously picks his way toward the truth, toward fair dealing, and 
toward sound civic decision. Obviously, this is a task for which men can 
be trained. Are our schools or colleges of any considerable service in 
this form of training now? It seems doubtful, to say the least. 

And yet, here is a field of most positive, direct, and fruitful kind for 
the promotion of mental disciplines in schools. These headlines and bill- 
boards, sensational news items and editorials, journalistic commendations 
and fault-findings, are nO' less accessible to our junior and senior high 
school pupils than to our adult citizens — and often, with some guidance 
from teachers, they are no less comprehensible to our junior citizens. 
Why should not our teachers of civics exact of these still plastic citizens 



564 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

in the making very substantial amounts of "training" in critical examina- 
tions of partizan methods, the comparative study of ex-parte conten- 
tions, the search for most probable sources of truth? Every specific 
strand of habit, appreciation, knowledge, ideal, thus acquired will prob- 
ably be functional in the real situations later to be encountered in adult 
life. Why force the learner to "work" his brain in disentangling the 
dead and buried complexities of Roman or Elizabethan or even early 
American politics, when, for ten or fifteen cents, can be procured an arm- 
ful of truly "original documents" wherein to decipher to-day's battles 
and to anticipate sound civic tactics for to-morrow? 

"Relate education to life!" Certainly. But the wealth of printed 
documents that clog our mails at election time are the vital pulsating 
expression of our present political life. Only minds disciplined to deal 
with this kind of material can be our best and safest citizens. Now we 
leave that discipline largely to chance, or to the self-directed efforts of 
a few far-seeing spirits. Living in Newcastles, we bring some pitiful 
coals from afar, and wonder why our costly efforts are so futile. The 
third chapter of H. G. Wells' New Machiavelli has still a message for most 
of our school men. 

h. There exists a second very practicable avenue for the development 
of disciplinary education directly in the interests of good citizenship. 
It is a truism that the largest single source of contemporary poHtical 
problems is found in our modern complex economic life. Once govern- 
ment needed to concern itself with the economic life only to the extent 
of protecting property, levying fair taxes, insuring uniform measures, 
stabilizing currency, and mildly regulating international trade. Those 
days of simplicity are gone. Now government seems fated to affect our 
economic activities in a thousand of their most critical parts and proc- 
esses. 

The well intentioned citizen of to-day is confronted at all times when 
he must vote, and at other times when he must contribute to the formation 
of opinion on public policies, by economic "problems," some of which are 
no less intricate in their- mechanical aspects than are mathematical prob- 
lems, and the solutions of which are far more elusive because of the ethical 
factors involved. 

But many of these problems, given a proper setting and exposition, 
are no more difficult than the arithmetical, geometrical, and algebraic 
problems with which, for generations, we seem fruitlessly to have taxed 
the minds of our youth, especially from the ages of twelve to eighteen. 
There is no harm in giving youth hard nuts to crack, provided the nuts 



THE MENTAL SCIENCES 565 

are known to have kernels, and provided the labor required is not so 
prolonged as to exclude time and spirit for the necessary more develop- 
mental or naturalistic kinds of educations. But it is surely wrong to 
ask youths to crack many hard nuts that we should know are void of 
kernels. 

Can we educators not devise courses in vital contemporary economic 
problems, adapted to boys of average intelligence of twelve, again of four- 
teen, and again of sixteen years of age ? Let them be hard problems. Let 
them be so arranged as to require closest attention and .reasoning for 
their solution. Let them exact sustained and concentrated mental efifort no 
less than do problems in mensuration, with equations of two or more 
unknown quantities, or in the applications of sines and tangents. 

Our prospective citizens, cutting their intellectual teeth on these prob- 
lems, will thus be acquiring specific forms of mental training that will 
be functional throughout adult life. With reference to such training 
certainly no mystical uncertainties as to "transfer" need be encountered. 

REQUIREMENTS FOR CULTURE 

"Culture," in any distinctive and adequate meaning of the term, in- 
volves relatively few "powers of execution" or "performance powers" ; 
but it does involve a very wide range of "appreciations." Appreciations 
visibly grow in all social environments, upon bases of instinct, through 
imitation and other experience. The psychology underlying the teaching 
of various forms of appreciation seems yet too obscure to enable us to 
speak with confidence of the practicabihty of "training" powers or ca- 
pacities of appreciation. Perhaps we shall yet find that acceptably func- 
tioning varieties of mental discipline can be had in training toward 
definite appreciations for adult life. 

Some of the "performance powers" essential to the culture of adults 
in modern civilization are, however, acquired in early youth. Silent read- 
ing, handwrrting, spelling, "consumers' " arithmetic (as distinguished 
from vocational arithmetic), and a few essentials of oral and written com- 
position are the most obvious of these. Somewhere in the grades are 
acquired formal masteries of certain salient elements in geography and 
in American history, the accurate mental retention of which constitute in 
effect also "cultural performance powers" — or "intellectual tools," as they 
are sometimes called. 

It is obvious that, with reference to the acquisition of these powers, 
efficient education should employ the maximum of mental training essen- 



566 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

tial to their permanent functioning. The handwriting habits established 
in youth should be so deeply fixed that they will persist throughout adult 
years, always adding further "character." It might not be inopportune, 
indeed, to try to establish at the same time certain permanent ideals of 
legibility or grace of handwriting which, like ideals of good manners, 
would remain functional throughout life. Each elementary-school subject 
designed to establish enduring "performance powers" should, therefore, 
be accompanied by its due measure of exacting mental training. (Let 
it not be assumed that such specific training is not practicable under the 
"project method"; it is too early to say with confidence what is, and 
what is not, practicable under that method.) 

The second large field for mental discipline of known kinds in cultural 
education is found in the freely sought cultivation of specialized powers. 
A cultured society is assured only in part by bringing all persons up to 
certain levels of performance or appreciation. Beyond that is needed 
endless diversity of specialized powers and tastes. 

We can imagine a city with high cultural standards in which a small 
fraction of the adults would be, quite apart from their vocational pursuits, 
devotees of the Greek and Roman classics ; another fraction enthusiastic 
amateur violinists ; a third group would be eager naturalists ; whilst still 
another would devote themselves with much zeal to the study of Chinese 
and Japanese languages and literature. 

To these varieties of specialized cultures there is every reason why 
school and college should contribute through elective courses so organized 
as to attract only the talented, and so conducted as to retain only those 
willing to subject themselves, for "love of the goal," to exacting processes 
of training. Obviously, then, from these sources are to be derived number- 
less forms of "functioning mental training." 

(For supplemental readings see references following Ch. 32.) 



CHAPTER XLIII 

THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

WE Americans, to an extent probably never before equaled among 
any people, live in the midst of "applied" art. The clothing of our- 
selves and others, the furnishings of our rooms, the exteriors of our 
houses, the typography and pictures of printed pages, and the lures of 
advertisers are almost incessantly before our eyes. We pay liberally to 
see moving pictures. Amateur and professional photography play large 
roles among us. Our wagons, automobiles, and harvesting machines are 
all painted and shaped vi^ith some degree of esthetic motive. The bindings 
of our books and the covers of our magazines profusely exhibit the craft 
of artist and engraver. We never-endingly criticize one another's taste 
in dress, rugs, and jewelry. 

About half a century ago we began to take seriously the matter of 
teaching drawing and art in our public schools. To this day we do not 
exactly know why — that is, our purposes are not yet sufficiently definite 
and tested to enable us confidently to say that by this or that method we 
actually are enriching our social life. We are here to a peculiar extent 
the victims of "faith objectives" — and strongly colored by conventions and 
traditions, at that. 

1. Why do you think we should teach more "graphic and plastic art" (here- 
after, in conformity with current depraved usage, conveniently called "art") 
in our public schools? In what respects as a people are we harmfully "short" 
in art? Where are these shortages most manifest — in dress, architecture, 
tools, pictures, the "pure" arts of painting and sculpture? 

2. Is it well for us that we put so much money into advertising art? What 
social service (or disservice) does such art render? 

3. What is now usually meant by these as school subjects: drawing; me- 
chanical drawing; design; modeling; color work; applied art; commercial 
art; industrial arts (first four grades); industrial arts (seventh and eighth 
grades); industrial arts (special secondary or higher schools); domestic art; 
art appreciation? 

4. What are now positions usually taken by well informed opinion as to 
the desirability of including these subjects in public-school curricula? Should 
courses in any one of them be prescribed for all? At what ages? Should 
any course be prescribed for talented pupils? For pupils inferior in other 

567 



568 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

subjects? For pupils in particular kinds of vocational schools? For what 
reasons, in each case ? 

5. What are, in your opinion, the purposes or aims that would justify the 
teaching of : some drawing to all pupils ; to some pupils ; modeling to all ; or 
to some ; art appreciation to all ; to some ? In what grades or types of schools ? 
At what permissible cost of time and money? 

6. What is the meaning of the phrase "drawing as a means of expression"? 
Expression of what? What are the deficiencies of language as a means of 
expression for you? For a traveler? For a designer-craftsman? For a me- 
chanic? To what extent can the spinners, weavers,' and other operatives in 
a modern textile mill affect the color and form harmonies that enter into the 
fabrics produced? Whence originate the designs used in silk and cotton 
goods now produced in America ? 

7. What have been, in selected historic periods, the "social values" of sculp- 
ture? Was Greek and Renaissance Italian sculpture provided primarily to 
satisfy desires for the "beautiful"? Or to satisfy other desires — e.g., for 
permanent record of glorious events, portrayal of physical "fineness," remem- 
brance of the departed, worth of deities — partly through medium of esthetic 
appeal ? What sculpture now makes a considerable popular appeal ? Or appeal 
to educated taste? Can we "educate" our young people in "appreciation" of 
good sculpture? Why do it if we can? Is it probable that we shall again 
have a revival of sculpture as a fine art? 

8. What were the "social values" of painting prior to the discoveries of 
printing and photography? How was it used in elevating worship, martial 
virtues, morals ? What are now the more obvious social' values of painting, 
pictorial art (printed reproductions), and photographic art (cinema) respec- 
tively? What could be the objectives of education toward "appreciation" of 
these forms of art? Do "esthetic" elements play a large part in them? Of 
what nature? 

9. What are social values — religious, political, esthetic, economic, and others 
— sought through architecture? What contributions to social well-being seem 
to have accrued from: the Pyramids; Egyptian temples; Greek temples; Ro- 
man political buildings; Gothic churches ; French villas; American "skyscrap- 
ers"? Would it be practicable to educate pupils in appreciation of "good" 
architecture? Are standards of good architecture settled in America? 

10. Estimate the "proportion of market value" in the following that is due 
to harmonies of form and color — to the appeal, that is, to the esthetic instincts : 
brooches; gowns for dancing; the altars of rich Catholic churches; watches 
costing fifty dollars or more; automobiles costing upward of five thousand 
dollars; state capitols; men's neckties; table equipment for banquets. 

11. Similarly, estimate proportion of "market value" due to art factors in: 
a frontiersman's log cabins; automobiles costing less than one thousand dollars; 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 569 

working shoes; girls' working house dresses; doorways of small renting 
houses; farmers' pocket knives; typewriting machines; warehouses. 

12. Divide material utilities into four categories, A, B, C, D, according to 
the relative importance in them of esthetic elements, those of Class A having, 
like jewelry, laces, and expensive churches, the largest amounts. Where 
would you place these: ordinary kitchen utensils; a carpenter's tools; an in- 
fant's outfit costing more than ten dollars; a man's business suit; the buildings 
along "Main Street" ; cheaper grades of wall paper ; farm wagons ; chandeliers 
(electric) in small suburban homes; women's hats in 1890; recently built loco- 
motives; bindings of recent novels; ordinary "front" gardens in suburban 
homes ? 

13. Are the "American people" seriously deficient in appreciations of har- 
monies of form and color? What is the evidence? Were we "better" in 
colonial days ? Are the Italians better now ? Were they in the fifteenth 
century ? What does a mail-order house catalogue tell you ? 

Should we, and can we, teach in schools appreciation of the esthetic quali- 
ties in objects of every-day utility? Has it ever been done? By what means 
do you think it can be done? Is it done in France, Japan, England? 

14. Assume yourself directed to teach as much "esthetic" appreciation of 
architecture, landscape, dress, and furniture as practicable in one hundred 
hours, to one hundred boys and girls, ages twelve to fifteen, leaving school 
at fifteen. They live in a "small city" environment. How would you pro- 
ceed? Would you have them execute many drawings? Of what? Would 
you assemble pictures ? Of what? Would you have excursions ? Whither and 
to what ends? 

15. Is it important that drawing be taught for vocational ends? For what 
vocations — those of gardener, stenographer, waitress, carpenter, teacher of 
French, sailor, dentist, grocery-store clerk, actress, coal-miner, dairy husband- 
man, tailor, home-maker, truck driver, dressmaker, plumber, lumberman? 
Should special drawing for these vocations be confined to the vocational 
school ? Do manual workers in general now have any considerable need of 
drawing ? 

THE OBJECTIVES OF ART EDUCATION 

These five basic objectives will, it is probable, control in the art 
education of the more comprehensive and richer civilization toward which 
we hope we are moving: ^ 

1. Systematic effort will be made to elevate within moderate limits 
the utilizing- tastes or appreciations of all, as a part of general education. 

2. Provision will be made for the extended education in taste or critical 
appreciation of those having special interests,, abilities, and opportunities. 



570 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

as part of elective cultural education. These persons will correspond to 
the connoisseurs who are at present produced largely by self-education. 

3. A small proportion of our youths, selected because of evident promise 
as producers of art qualities in some of their numerous forms, will be 
encouraged and assisted. They will be given high-grade specialist service, 
in the hope that productive proficiency in the art-using vocations will 
result. 

4. Another small proportion of talented persons will, if they desire it, 
be given special facilities for becoming producers of art qualities as 
avocations or on the basis of amateur performance. 

5. Persons electing specialized vocational training for productive occu- 
pations involving art factors, such as carpentry, house painting, job print- 
ing, gardening, and others yet to be analyzed, but excluding, of course, 
those forms of large-scale production in which artistic designing is a 
specialized function, will be given special training in needed forms of 
appreciation and execution in their vocational schools. 

Social needs for each of the foregoing forms of art education still 
require analysis and comparative evaluation. It is clear that in all produc- 
tion by power-driven machinery the introduction of art factors is being 
increasingly delegated to specialists. Nearly all the cloth, clothes, shoes, 
furniture, printed pages, tableware, bookbindings, lighting fixtures, 
vehicles, rugs, food cartons, hand tools, and house trimmings now used 
by the hundred million relatively lavish consumers of this rich country, 
are produced under conditions and on scales that place a great premium 
on the services of a comparatively small number of highly talented de- 
signers. Probably any country striving to excel in high-grade manufac- 
ture should seek out and highly cultivate its most promising talent in 
artistic design for these fields. For half a century we have planned to 
do this in America, but thus far, the critics tell us, with indifferent success. 

Many lines of production rest wholly or partly on a handicraft basis. 
Where a handicraftman tries to compete with machinery, the product — 
for example, garments, furniture, rugs, jewelry, bookbindings, automobile 
bodies, and pictures — will usually become accessible only to the v/ealthy, 
or else it will be carelessly thrown together for the poor. But in many 
vocations, of which the building trades, the repair trades, gardening, job 
printing, table service, and certain varieties of personal adornment are 
noteworthy examples, machinery can compete but little, if at all. Art 
factors appear in some degree in all of these. Probably these art factors 
should be the concern of the specialized vocational schools for these 
callings. 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 571 



ART APPRECIATION AS A GENERAL OBJECTIVE 

The production of art in any place and at any time will be greatly 
affected, of course, by intelligent, persistent, and tastefully exacting de- 
mand. International trade, indeed, will assure any modern people a 
large and varied supply of art products, even if it produce none within 
its own boundaries. Under present-day democratic conditions, it is very 
probable that basic demands for art education assume the possible creation 
throughout a large proportion of society of refined and elevated apprecia- 
tions of art qualities. We need, then, more and better art appreciation 
in America. The most efficacious and speedy method of developing 
art appreciation is to teach it in our schools ; but it is hard to go beyond 
this point. Have we a pedagogy of art appreciation? Have we suc- 
cessful schemes of educational aim or method here? Have we concrete 
objectives? Or have we only aspirations and some "faith" objectives? 

Some elements of the problem are obvious to those who will observe. 
All persons, apparently as a part of their instinctive nature, have pref- 
erences and desires, which are sometimes intense and poignant, for some 
of those harmonies of color, form, and shade that are basic to graphic 
and plastic art. Many, if not all, readily respond in variable degrees to 
the educative effects of example, instruction, and criticism as found in 
the social environment, by modifying tastes already formed, thus adopt- 
ing conventional appreciations. What we commonly accept as art appre- 
ciation is frequently, if not always, charged or mixed with certain other 
qualities having little or nothing to do with pure esthetic sensibility. The 
most common of these are asso^ciations and fashions. What is loosely 
called the beautiful may often be precious to sentiment, in part because 
of old friendly associations, or because of. that herd interest, or approval, 
called fashion. Among the supposedly elite in art appreciation there are 
often found persistent and radical differences of standards. In this situa- 
tion the education of the young becomes, to say the least, uncertain and 
confused. 

Definitions of art appreciation in its various manifestations are but 
slightly developed as yet. Words such as "liking," "desire," "taste," 
"appetite," "interest," and "satisfaction" express states of consciousness 
which, operating in esthetic areas, rest on appreciations. Educated, as 
distinguished from instinctive, appreciations usually involve more of con- 
scious valuation, sense of worth, perhaps even reference to standards. For 
all of us not gifted with philosophic insight, the best road to understand- 



572 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

ing here is through inductive assembling of examples. We all have appre- 
ciations in thousandfold varieties ; our neighbors have them in more or 
less different forms from us ; and we are always changing our apprecia- 
tions in some slight measure. Sociology, no less than education, can well 
ask as its first questions, "Appreciations of what?" and "Appreciations by 
what standards?" 

The objects utilized by civilized man are now beyond easy computation. 
Clothing, foodstuffs, houses, vehicles, books, highways, furniture, tools, 
domestic animals, are some of the large groups. These objects are valued 
for many reasons. A cloak shields from the cold, contributes to the 
covering desired by modesty, protects from brambles, provides carrying 
pockets, renders the person more beautiful, and may be a thing of beauty 
in itself, apart from its decorative qualities. A framed picture breaks an 
excessive expanse of plain wall, suggests interesting and possibly useful 
knowledge, decorates the room, and perhaps provides a distinctive esthetic 
appeal all its own. 

Decorative purposes determine almost wholly demands for some 
articles. Ornamental jewelry, bric-a-brac, bouquets, and some paintings 
belong in this class. But many products of the highest artistic effort are 
prized, primarily, for the contributions they make to spiritual or non- 
esthetic emotional satisfactions. Greek temples. Christian churches, 
martial painting, memorial monuments, tapestries, ceremonial garments, 
festal displays, and pageants are, in their wholesome origins at least, valued 
because of the reverence, patriotic spirit, affection, or profound under- 
standings that they inspire. Harmonies of color and form are employed 
in them as means, not as ends. Material beauty aids the communication, 
but is not of the message communicated. We are told that many of the 
paintings of the Renaissance were not intended for the detached and 
isolated positions now occupied by them in galleries. Much of Greek 
statuary was similarly functional in structures designed primarily for 
other than esthetic ends. Flowers separated from their home settings 
may bring their fragrance and color to our tables, but nature seems to 
have desired finer uses "for them. 

ART IN UTILIZATION 

The study of man as a utilizer seems to support these findings. He 
has many wants or desires, all resting on instincts, and all more or less 
susceptible to education. Among these wants are cravings for gratifica- 
tion of the esthetic sensibilities. At some stage, usually not the earliest, 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 573 

in nearly all his outreachings for the means of satisfying his wants, he 
becomes conscious of these esthetic desires or needs. But his needs, as 
he feels them, vary greatly in direction and intensity, according to circum- 
stances. In relation to the primary needs for security, food, shelter, 
reproduction, and placation of deities, his esthetic needs are secondary, 
even derivative. Elemental man in his hunger will take food without 
artificial flavor, garnishment, or refined service ; in his need for shelter 
he will take a cave, a hovel, or a shack, careless of intrinsic beauty or 
decoration ; for protection from cold and brambles he gladly accepts body 
covering beautified by no harmonies of line, color, or shade. 

We know very little about' the biological sources of the instincts for 
the esthetic. We know hardly more about their development and actual 
services among primitive peoples. But in historic societies many tendencies 
can be studied. The most significant of these, for our purposes, is found 
in man as the artificer. Our remote ancestors could only take as nature 
gave. Modern man, as maker, fashioner, inventor, designer, handicrafts- 
man, manufacturer, and beautifier, innovates, creates, and copies endlessly. 
In the products that man makes for himself, or pays others to make, 
valued qualities are cornbined. In crude terms, we say that a tool, hat, 
chair, or automobile is useful and beautiful, or useful without being 
beautiful, or even sometimes beautiful without being very useful. Under 
"useful" we include only values that are non-esthetic. Qualities of beauty 
are no less "useful" in a fundamental sense than others, although they 
are commonly less contributory to elemental needs of survival. 

Because man's products, or his choice gatherings of strictly natural 
objects, combine esthetic with other valued qualities, it should be prac- 
ticable for psychologists and educators to detach and evaluate each type 
of value separately, as the chemist separates elements, the biologist func- 
tions, and the psychologist types of mental reaction. Can we get at the 
essential factors in education for appreciation in any other way? Can 
we get away from present obscurities in any other way? The writer 
thinks not. 

GRADING OF ESTHETIC VALUES 

Problems of esthetic values may be attacked in this way: Establish 
four categories. A, B, C, and D, within which to classify articles according 
to their possession, under conditions of normal social demand, of much 
or little of the qualities called esthetic or artistic. Let us place in Class A 
those articles that are valued primarily for their beauty, and in Class D 



574 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

those in which harmonies of form and color play very little part. It 
might prove practicable so to measure utilizer's valuations that we could 
place in Class A those things in which the esthetic constitutes from 80 
to 100 per cent, of their value; in Class B those in which the esthetic value 
is from 50 to 80 per cent. ; in Class C those in which it is from 20 to 50 
per cent. ; and in Class D all those in which it is less than 20 per cent. 

Having these categories, would a well informed jury agree that in the 
first class we should place necklaces, men's stickpins and neckties, flowers 
on tables, church-altar decorations, wall pictures, women's festive hats, 
certain library books, and monuments? Would they place in the second, 
or B, category the parlor furniture of the rich, ball-room gowns, opera- 
house interiors, state capitols, well bound books, and some parks? In 
category C would there be placed business men's clothes, all high-priced 
automobiles, railway-car furnishings, cottages, parks, razors, and other 
tools for personal use, expensive shoes, watcties, some bridges, and table- 
ware for festive occasions? Should we place in category D locomotives, 
warehouses, log cabins, working clothes, school books, ordinary roads, 
kitchen furniture, and the countless tools wherewith we work? Where 
should we place college buildings, steel bridges, some recently built con- 
crete bridges, the more expensive magazines, electric-light fixtures, modern 
firearms, clothes for small children, office furniture, ordinary automobiles, 
men's evening clothes, window displays of dry goods in a large city, the 
scenery of a recent performance of Macbeth, Gothic cathedrals, American 
wooden churches. West Point buildings, and Mission furniture? 

Until we can obtain some classifications generally agreed upon, as here 
suggested, it would seem that proposals for teaching art appreciation are 
likely to increase rather than diminish the prevailing confusion, which 
seems no less in evidence among the specialists, practitioners, and con- 
noisseurs in the art-world itself than among the public at large. 

STANDARDS OF ART APPRECIATION NOW FOUND 

Before talking about improving tastes or standards of esthetic utiliza- 
tion, we should know our present status. We are, of course, incessantly 
criticizing one another's tastes, but our own standards for such criticism 
are largely subjective. Might it not be profitable to attempt here the 
methods of the survey on the basis of some accepted objective standards, 
or union of subjective standards? For this purpose it would be necessary 
to take a selected area, geographical or social. Suppose a study were 
made in a given state of the young women, chosen at random, from twenty- 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 575 

four to thirty-five years of age, recently married, with family incomes 
of more than twelve hundred dollars and less tlian eighteen hundred dol- 
lars a year. Assume the survey restricted to those with more than six 
grades, but less than eleven grades, of public-school education. 

These women are utilizers, not only so far as their personal needs 
are concerned, but because they are largely in effect the purchasing agents 
for their homes, for their children, and, in several respects, even for their 
husbands. Often their preferences far outrun the purchasing powers of 
the family incomes. Proper standards of evaluating their tastes, there- 
fore, will have to take account of necessary limitations in their present 
spending powers. Means could be found for testing and appraising the 
prevailing tastes of these women within each of a variety of fields. The 
judges, having agreed upon reasonable standards, could rank these women 
in terms of such standards as excellent, good, fair, poor, or bad, in respect 
to esthetic appreciations of personal dress, dress of children, furniture, 
tableware, food service, fine-art exliibits, garden, house, moving pictures, 
and natural scenery. 

Other groups could be similarly studied. In respect to several types 
of utilities, what are the prevailing tastes of negro women in Alabama, 
recently immigrated Italian men of low economic rank, prosperous farm- 
ers' wives in Ohio, college boys in older universities, women art students, 
and others? 

Cultural education in art will be very difficult to promote in America 
as a general movement unless and until leaders are substantially agreed 
as to deficiencies, explicitly and concretely defined, now prevailing among 
specified classes of the population. It will be well, too, for art teachers 
to undertake this form of study. It will compel them, as nothing else 
could, to define their standards, analyze their fields of work, and find 
themselves. 

IJJDIRECT METHODS OF TEACHING ART APPRECIATION 

Two methods of teaching various forms of art appreciation will here 
be called indirect; first, that of teaching principles, and second that of 
teaching through construction or production. In every department of 
education men have always sought the short cuts of speedy intellectual 
grasp of principles. Some great mind will one day write a history of 
teaching methods, which will show the numberless graveyards of logical 
approaches in arithmetic, mathematics, reading, science, manual training, 
music, logic, foreign language, and the rest. 



576 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Our forefathers used to teach reading by means of endless drills on 
syllables, real and unreal. They taught penmanship by long drills on 
"up curves" and "pot-hooks." Foreign-language study involved number- 
less exercises in writing out "the umbrella of the aunt of my sister-in- 
law," and other nonsensical statements, and in memorizing the rhymes 
built up of Latin endings. Logic had its abstract symbolism, and geog- 
raphy ran to verse. Even now, pedagogues believe that decisions in civic 
matters can be prepared for through mastery of principles deducible from 
the history of the past. We still teach relatively pure mathematics and 
physics as foundations for home-making and for electrical engineering. 
But, in proportion as we have democratized education, we have become 
distrustful of methods designed to give an early grasp of principles. 
Practical teachers, studying the results of their work, find, probably, that 
average minds do not make much progress on this road. Psychology may 
yet show us that only a few rare minds can readily apprehend and apply 
principles, whether in grammar or statecraft, mechanics or the esthetic. 

Artists and teachers of art undoubtedly possess gifts that enable them 
readily to apperceive the fundamentals of color and form harmonies, after 
which they can readily apply their knowledge to the interpretation of 
concrete and very composite situations as presented directly to their 
senses and understanding. Certainly, similarly gifted minds are found 
working with mathematics, mechanics, language, and business. But the 
great majority, who are not instinctively driven to become worshipers 
at the shrines of art, probably possess gifts of intuitive art interest in 
much less degree than do the art teachers. Here, again, the correspond- 
ence of art powers to those of mathematics, mechanics, language, and busi- 
ness is plain. 

Hence, we should be chary of assuming that others can come to higher 
stages of appreciation by the roads that have proved easy for art experts. 
We should be warned by the futility of much of the instruction and train- 
ing given in the past. In most cases it would seem to have been seed 
sown on the rock. We need to study the processes by whic*h taste has 
been improved in recent years in domestic architecture, illustration, and 
kindred fields as results of European travel, the competitions of pub-, 
lishers, and other very direct and objective appeals to the eye, quite apart 
from intellectual apprehension of underlying principles. 

The second indirect method of teaching appreciation is to induce the 
learner to become, for a time, a producer. To acquire esthetic apprecia- 
tions of furniture, pictures, or dresses, let us first do what we can to 
produce, perhaps in very amateur fashion, some articles of furniture, some 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 577 

pictures, or some dresses. There can be no dispute as to the validity of 
this method when honestly employed with objects within the learner's 
amateur grasp. It is used at present in teaching short-story writing, 
appreciation of drama, the making of dresses, and occasionally in the 
fields of pottery, simple furniture, and jewelry. It is also used occasion- 
ally in typography. It probably can not be employed practically in 
teaching appreciation of novels, automobiles, bookbindings, parks, music, 
shoes, men's clothing, parlor furniture, silverware, and bridges. Probably 
it can be employed extensively in hairdressing, table-setting, and room 
ornamentation. Certain modifications of it need to be carefully examined. 
Can we teach art in clothing by dressing dolls, or taste in wall papers by 
stenciling designs, or appreciation of paintings by the crude little products 
of high-school children? Perhaps posters and cartoons come within 
workable categories. 

DIRECT METHODS OF TEACHING ART APPRECIATION 

Have our schools ever attempted to teach specific forms of art apprecia- 
tion by direct methods? Recorded instances seem very few and frag- 
mentary. Certainly a large field here lies open to experimentation. A 
concrete problem like the following could easily be experimented with: 

There are on the market probably scores of varieties of teaspoons, rang- 
ing from the very inexpensive to the very expensive. The art qualities 
of these range from poor to excellent, but there is no necessarily close 
correlation between price and artistic quahty. Suppose we arrange a 
traveling exhibit of fifty specimens of teaspoons of all kinds. The exhibit 
is brought before a sixth grade. A pupil is asked to take the jumbled 
collection and arrange the spoons, first, in order of "pretty to ugly," with- 
out further direction, making a record, by the numbers on the spoons, of 
her choices. The spoons are again jumbled, and other pupils do likewise. 
Then a general discussion is held relative to the esthetic qualities manifest 
in the spoons. Again pupils arrange the spoons in order from "most 
beautiful" to "most ugly" or "least beautiful," by the standards of esthetic 
excellence stated as "That which I think I should like for many years, and 
for use with good company." Suppose this experiment repeated for a 
given group at intervals of two years in their sixth, eighth, and tenth 
grades, in the last case in connection with cultural home economics. As 
a result, would not abiding appreciations of "good form" in spoons be 
almost certainly produced in nearly all the pupils? 

To apply similar methods in the case of wall papers and furniture would 



578 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

probably necessitate, in cities, stationary exhibits to which classes could 
be taken. Would that be difficult or expensive in a city of one hundred 
thousand people? Such exhibits would, of course, have to exclude the 
merely curious or historic, and be confined to probably available offerings 
of current markets. For adults it might be practicable to provide more 
central and comprehensive exhibits to initiate new standards of demand. 

Appreciation of domestic architecture might be advanced in the same 
way. Let us imagine one or two art teachers in a city undertaking such 
education of the rising generation. What should be their best laboratory? 
Surely the houses on the streets of their own city. Among these are 
hundreds of examples, none wholly bad, none ideally good, but all with 
good and bad points. For each of grades 8, lo, and 12, these teachers 
have, let us assume, nine hours for each class, to use in periads of three 
hours each. These periods should be devoted to conducted excursions, 
followed by discussions, and then by pictures and easy general reading 
about essentials of artistic architecture. Up to certain moderate limits, at 
least, would not such a method establish some good standards and initiate 
new esthetic interests? 

It is not certain that art teachers would yet be willing to enter upon 
the difficult field of women's dress. But we can not dodge the obvious 
fact that hereabouts are exercised the esthetic interests of women from 
fifteen to thirty, and often much later in life, to degrees unsurpassed by 
their artistic interests in all other fields together. Should not the study 
of good art, like the practice of charity, begin at home? And how very 
accessible are the means for such study. True, the situation is compli- 
cated by those elusive social phenomena comprehensively called "fashion." 
One has a disturbed feeling that even experienced art teachers find them- 
selves, like King Arthur in Lyonnesse, in a region of mystic confusion 
where dress is concerned. 

A certain school in New York City prepares girls for office positions. 
The faculty, among other things, seek to define for the girls acceptable 
standards of dress and personal behavior for the working positions in 
view. Then the class, by vote, selects that member who, in their judg- 
ment, most nearly approximates the idealized standards in specified re- 
spects. 

All our pupils live in a world thronged with art-embodying objects. 
Are we to fail in constantly directing and improving their appreciations 
here? Can we not by attention to this world, by record of preferences, 
and by discussion of comparative choices, not only constantly impress 
standards of comparative choices, not only constantly impress standards 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 579 

of worth, but also interpret and evaluate their objective exhibitions all 
around us ? Must we still always put the cart before the horse in teaching 
the abstract before the concrete, the unknown before the known, the 
remote before the near, the unreal, apperceptively considered, before the 
real? 

Let us never forget that some creature closely related to Mrs. Grundy 
is always busy at this work of educating appreciations. Where the shod 
feet of girls are concerned, she takes the form of a young man who will 
dance only with "French heels." In the case of the housewife's rugs, she 
comes in the guise of neighbors up and down the street. The clubwoman, 
the traveling salesman, the "man milliner," and the ready-made clothing 
manufacturers know perfectly well who she is. The architect, bookbinder, 
illustrator, bridge builder, and tableware designer find her more elusive; 
whilst she is, of course, the despair of sculptors and public-monument 
designers. But, like her co-worker in social morals, she is useful only on 
the lower levels of life. She is moody, and of uncertain standards. She 
needs to be replaced by more modern agents. She has done frontier 
America good service. But the frontier has gone forever. We must 
build for time now, not for the moment. 

PROBLEMS 

I. Is it educationally scientific and useful to divide the objectives of all 
graphic and plastic art education into these classes : 

a. Free-hand and instrumental pencil work, brush work, stencil and 
modeling (with minor examples in crafts, such as wood, lace, soft metal, 
etc.) as developmental subjects for children from three years of age 
upward, going little beyond naturalistic standards of method, and having 
as controlling objectives, first developmental experience and expression, 
and second projective applications and amateur interests ? 

b. Mechanical drawing as a pre-vocational subject, related vocational 
subject, or specifically vocational subject? 

c. Free-hand drawing and painting as a pre-vocational or vocational 
subject (for specific vocations) or as an avocational interest? 

d. Any one of many forms of graphic and plastic art as pre-vocational, 
vocational, or avocational? 

e. Any one of several forms of intensive cultivation of appreciation 
of form, color, or shade harmonies in application (to architecture, dress, 
furniture, jewelry, landscapes, bric-a-brac, tools, etc.). Sound formula- 
tion of objectives requires that we always specify areas of application, 



58o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

e.g., spoons, rugs, cottages, women's hats, saws, coaches, watches, park 
walls, bri4ges. 

2. Is it (a) desirable, and (&) practicable, that the following principles 
guide the teaching of graphic and plastic art in schools: 

a. That in all grades, from the kindergarten through at least the tenth, 
elective units from developmental art subjects be freely offered without 
drill and with a minimum of technical process, the dominating spirit 
being that of amateur performance, the work being little standardized, 
and largely devoid of projective aims? 

b. That in the upper grades and throughout the high school, as cir- 
cumstances permit, elective units of training in appreciation of art in 
specific applications be offered — ^varying from printed pictures, wall 
papers, tableware, and dress to photodrama, painting, sculpture, and local 
architecture ? 

c. That elective units in amateur production toward cultural specialties 
(avocations or connoisseurship) be ofTered persons of manifest talent 
from ten years of age onward (specify kinds) ? 

d. That pre-vocational units of mechanical drawing (and freehand 
sketching and designing?) be made available in junior and senior high 
schools to students of manifest promise? 

e. That training for artistic service in the art-using vocations be pro- 
vided for in central schools for youths from sixteen upward, with facilities 
for close correlated study of related mechanical processes? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bell, Clive. Art (Part I, What is Art? Part III, Art and Life. Part 

V, The Future). 
CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 35, Art and Social Idealism). 
Cram, R. A. The Ministry of Art (Ch. 3, Place of Fine Arts in Public 

Schools ; Ch. 7, The Ministry of Art) . , 

Crane, W. Ideals in Art. 

Dow, A. W. Theory anU Practice in Teaching Art. 
Emerson, R. W. Essays (Essay on Beauty). 

Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 20, Pedagogy of Drawing). 
Inglis, a. Principles of Secondary Education (Ch. 18, The Place of 

the Esthetic Arts in the Program). 
Johnston, C. H. The Modern High School (Ch. 28, The High School 

as the Art Center of the Community). 



THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS 581 

JuDD, C. H. Psychology of the High School Subjects (Ch. 15, The Fine 

Arts). 
MiJNSTERBERG, HuGO. The Eternal Values (Ch. 10, The Values of 

Beauty). 
Powers, H. H. The Message of Greek Art. 
Scott, Colin. Social Education (Ch. 11, Fine Art). 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 22, Problems of 

the Place of Music and Graphic Art). 
Spencer, H. Education (Ch. i, What Knowledge is Most Worth). 
Thorndike, a. H. Literature in a Changing Age (Ch. 10, Beauty and 

Art). 



CHAPTER XLIV 

MUSIC 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EACH one of us is possessed of a variety of sensibilities or powers of 
appreciation that are called "esthetic." All of the senses, as well 
as internal powers of imagery and sentiment-formation, doubtless have 
their esthetic aspects or factors. But it is not now socially popular among 
peoples of "cultured" tastes to ascribe to, or seek to derive esthetic satis- 
factions of more than trifling importance from the temperature, tactual, 
gustatory, and olfactory senses. The beautiful is sought after through 
the higher senses — sight and hearing — and the imagination and higher 
forms of sentiment. 

Many sources of esthetic gratification or repulsion are involved in 
objects that are desired or avoided for other reasons as well. Only a 
small proportion of plastic art is found apart from objects of utility. 
Literary art is frequently tied up with other objectives of communication. 
We attend the moving pictures for knowledge as well as esthetic satisfac- 
tions. 

Of all the esthetic arts, music is the one most completely divorced from 
immediately "utilitarian" adjuncts. In a profounder sense, it has certainly 
been one of the most serviceable of the arts in drawing men to God, 
stimulating martial ardor, refining lustful feelings, cheering the de- 
pressed, and heartening men for work. Though still greatly sought after, 
it is not clear that it now carries these sociological values to the same 
extent as formerly. Perhaps education can make it do so — who knows? 

1. Do you and your associates naturally care for music? What kinds, espe- 
cially? Do you find that uneducated men and women also have strong desires 
for music? What racial groups have strong desires for music? What tastes 
do they show ? Are these desires chiefly for music that others render, or are 
they desirous of rendering music themselves ? 

2. Analyze your experiences with the learning of music through imitation 
— children following after elders, spread of popular songs, participating in 
college songs, sharing in the chorus, and the like. 

3. Is it your experience that music is a useful aid in worship? What kinds 
of music? What kinds of religious sentiment seem favored by it? What 
differences of effect probably result from "congregation," as against "choir," 
singing? Where congregations can be induced to sing much, what are the 
effects of "poor" singing on the singer? On the better singers whom he re- 
inforces or obstructs ? What are some of the qualities of the organ that seem 

582 



MUSIC 583 

to have given it such vogue as an aid to religious music? Apart from the 
character of rendition, what seem to you some of the characteristics of valu- 
able or helpful religious music; of poor or hurtful religious music? Will 
such valuations depend considerably on the musical education or sophistication 
of the hearer? 

4. What have been some of the evident uses of "war" or patriotic music? 
What were the half-dozen most "martial" songs of the Civil War? Of the 
"Great War" — 1914-18? What specific emotions does martial music evoke? 
Would a country or an army, without appealing and popular martial songs, 
be probably weakened for war on that account? Would you expect war 
music to be relatively more important for savage or illiterate soldiers, than 
for highly educated men defending their country ? In what ways does it 
seem probable that the "scientific" character of modern war renders martial 
music and all other appeals to the emotions less serviceable than it was under 
more "face-to-face" fighting? 

5. Does it seem to you that "love music" plays a large part in modern life ? 
What proportions of "concert" songs center in love themes ? Do "lovers" now 
court the objects of their affection largely through song, guitar, etc.? Why? 
Do "lovelorn" maidens now sing their sentiments? 

Under simple social conditions, show how prevalence of love music probably 
refined and ennobled the sex instincts and helped toward elevating the betrothal 
period and "socially good" marriage. 

6. In your experience, is music an important means of social or spiritual 
recreation or healthful diversion? What kinds of music? For what con- 
ditions of "fatigue" or need? Does it seem probable that technically "good" 
music is important for these purposes — or does any simple music "satisfy" ? 

7. It is often said that music is a great "moralizing" force. Apart from 
the martial, religious, and marital virtues already referred to, in what respects 
can it, or has it, been used to establish moral ideals, sentiments, and behavior ? 
Separately consider forgiveness, industriousness, thrift, tolerance, moral cour- 
age, kindliness toward childhood, friendship, respect for aged, and other 
social virtues. 

8. Does it seem (o) practicable, and (b), even at considerable expense, 
desirable : to teach all children to sing imitatively, as individuals or in chorus ; 
to teach all to read notation readily ; to educate toward higher forms of ap- 
preciation? Does it seem necessary to educate utilizers of phonograph music 
to choose "better" records? Analyze the character of the music now usually 
found in moving-picture houses. 

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF MUSIC 

Keen desires for music seem to exist in all human beings. The amount 
of money spent annually upon all forms of music in the United States 



584 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



has not been exactly computed, but unquestionably it exceeds in its total 
half of all the moneys expended upon all forms of school education. 

Under primitive social conditions, as well as under simple conditions 
of civilized society, large numbers of persons seem disposed and able to 
execute music — to sing individually or in chorus and to play simple instru- 
ments. Under the complex conditions of modern, and especially urban, 
life, the performance of music becomes largely a commercialised process, 
which permits exacting selection of native talent and extensive training. 
Tastes for difficult music, or for highly artistic rendition, grow more 
exacting, and, apparently, amateur performance is less sought after and 
tolerated. 

A musical education for all children — that is the ambition of many 
enthusiasts. For several decades steadily increasing attention has been 
given to the promotion of music in American public schools. But the 
objectives of this have not been well defined, and results have been far 
from satisfactory. Until more clear-cut purposes shall have been agreed 
upon, a large part of the money and energy expended on musical training 
in schools will almost inevitably be wasted. 

These purposes must, however, be determined through a study of 
social needs to be met. These are still obscure. Inductive study of social 
activities seems to show that many kinds of needs — some personal, some 
of a very social character — are ministered to by music, and by music 
of dififerent types. 

Martial music obviously plays a large part in uniting and stimulating 
peoples to meet that most drastic of all visible tests of political solidarit}' 
— war. Every people striving to promote or defend its tribal or national 
solidarity evolves or adapts martial music. Patriotic fervor seems to be 
both cause and effect of this music. Soldiers marching to combat seem 
instinctively to sing, whilst their mothers, wives, and other necessary 
home stayers eagerly cheer and sing them toward victory. "If the South 
had had the songs of the North, it would have won the war" — this was 
said with reference to the^ American Civil War of 1861. From the 
tomtom and wooden drums of savages, to the Marseillaise and Wacht am 
Rhein, all war — aggressive and defensive — has had its accompaniments 
of music. 

Religious music seems also to have played a mighty role in social 
evolution. From the efforts of the most primitive men known, to those 
of fashionable groups in modern capitals, music of one sort or another 
follows man's effort to placate deities and exorcise demons. Some kinds 
of music, obviously, do greatly stir the various emotions that make up 



MUSIC 585 

or accompany religion — including remorse for sin, affection for saints 
or the departed dead, reverence and awe of deified majesty. Religious 
music makes men religious — it can even evoke conversion; and in turn 
the religious man, like the martial man, seems greatly impelled to express 
his feelings in music. The numberless songs used by the Protestant 
churches in converting or holding frontier America to the Christian faith 
represent, sociologically, one of the remarkable achievements of collective 
effort. It is noteworthy, too, that when martial or political effort reaches 
its most exalted stages, it draws heavily upon religious music. 

Music of love seems also to have served a large function in all social 
life, though it is alleged to be absent from the love of primitive Africans. 
The gamut of music is so great, indeed, that it can be used, apparently, 
to stimulate in a great variety of helpful and injurious ways the senti- 
ments that attract men and women toward each other. It is sociologically 
very probable that as society struggled to evolve the family, and more 
particularly the monogamous family, approaches to which should cul- 
minate in the ceremony of marriage, it was found expedient and desirable 
— alv/ays first, of course, by elders and other experienced and far-sighted 
ones — to subject to special controls and development all those approaches 
which we call courtship. Naturally, the songs or other music that "short- 
circuited" or otherwise debased courtship were tabooed and driven to the 
obscure places and times where vice operated. But the music that gained 
in public approval and became widely used was that which refined and 
irradiated the various sexual passions and sentiments that underlie the 
foundation of the family union. 

Music of work hardly survives to-day ; but there exist many evidences 
that it was once widespread. Sailors' chanteys, rowers' songs, harvest 
hymns, spinning songs, marching hymns, and many others, testify that 
men and women, working in groups, long lightened the tedium of toil, 
stimulated one another, and probably developed means of concerted 
action, through music. Not a few sympathetic observers of modern large- 
scale work in mine, factory, and lumber camp have wished for a revival 
of common song to lighten the long hours. 

Music of diversion or social entertainment seems always to have been 
an important element in fellowship groups. The mother's lullabies to 
her children ; the recitals or musical tales told or sung around firesides ; 
drinking songs ; school and memorial songs of assemblages ; and number- 
less forms of instrumental music — all must be included in the categories 
of music for diversion or recreation. 

An unquestionable by-product of diversional music is the socialization 



586 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

of the participants. Participation as hearers, and very certainly in far 
greater degree participation as common singers or players, tends to lessen 
various forms of social antagonism or friction — differences of rank or 
race, dissensions, rivalries, and the like. Conversely, such participation 
promotes social solidarity and morale. It is perception of these social 
advantages that inspires the promoters of "community music." 

PROBLEMS OF MARTIAL AND RELIGIOUS MUSIC 

1. Music — of certain kinds — is very much in demand in the United 
States. No particular training of tastes for popular music seems neces- 
sary, any more than do young people need to be educated to like honey 
or fruit. But the musically educated often consider these "natural" or 
"environmentally sophisticated" desires inferior, if not vulgar. 

Here, obviously, are involved certain important problems of values. 
What are the "values" of music to individuals? To social groups? What 
are the differences in real social values between "popular" or "common" 
music, and that which appeals to musically educated people as good for 
valuable music? 

2. Assume that America were steadily being forced into war with 
another very powerful nation; that on both sides inventors were busy 
devising new means of destruction; that everywhere producers of steel, 
explosives, ships, wheat, army clothing, hospital supplies, and camp recrea- 
tions for soldiers, were working to their utmost; that conscription of all 
able-bodied workers had been legislated; and that presently a great loan 
was to be floated. Should we probably develop much patriotic singing 
and band performance? Should we probably see composed many new 
patriotic songs? Would old patriotic songs probably be revived? If a 
great wave of interest in martial music developed, would its chief value be 
its enabling all to give expression to their feelings, or so to stimulate the 
combatants that they would fight with redoubled vigor? 

3. This thesis is submitted. Martial music has served very important 
functions in past warfare — when men went into combat and were sus- 
tained in it largely by deep emotions of anger, hatred, love of country, 
longing for peace, and the like, and when war involved relatively close 
contacts of the combatants. But under modern conditions of warfare 
music ceases to have more than a minor role, and that chiefly confined, on 
the one hand to emotional expression for the populace, and on the other 
to recreational relief for the soldier or other endangered worker. In 
proportion as war becomes scientific and, to the individual soldiers, rela- 



MUSIC 587 

tively impersonal, music will count for relatively less as a social means 
toward its success for either party. 

4. Assume an intensive movement to increase and extend a great 
religious faith among fairly well educated Americans. What kinds of 
music would probably be employed, and for what specific purposes ? 

It is submitted that, whilst the ultimate foundations of religion must 
always involve sentiments and emotions of the profounder kinds, the 
progressive rationalizing of the incentives, means, and concrete interpreta- 
tions of religious appeal makes utilization of the ordinary emotions and 
sentiments increasingly difficult. Under these conditions, music as a 
social force in religious conversion, and in making tangible appeals to 
such sentiments as remorse, conviction of sin, reverence for deity, and the 
like, has a diminishing function. 

MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVES 

1. What is commonly meant by "music" as a school subject? Does 
it include training in individual vocal rendition? The playing of instru- 
ments? Chorus and "community" singing? Sight reading of musical 
notation? Appreciation of good music? 

2. What seems to be the prevalent public opinion on the part of well 
informed citizens as to advisability of using public funds to "teach" 
music? In such opinion, should all pupils be taught to sing? To read 
musical notation? To play the piano? The violin? Band instruments? 
To "appreciate" good music? Why? 

Or, beyond the lowest grades, should only the more talented or inter- 
ested be taught these things? Why? 

3. What is the social situation as regards musical powers and interests 
in America to-day? Is much money spent on the provision of music — in 
homes, church, theater, hotel, public assemblage? On instruments, phono- 
graph records, concerts? Is this music chiefly supported by relatively 
few music lovers, or by the majority of all our people? How does our 
total annual expenditure for music probably compare with that for public 
education? Is this popular interest chiefly in "good" or in "bad" or in 
simply "cheap" music? Does this music give "good" returns to our 
collective society? Distinguish in probable social efficacy the music now 
prevailingly available in homes, churches, dining places, parks, theaters, 
and political assemblages. Analyze somewhat specifically the contentions 
that "Americans are not a musical people" ; that they are generous sup- 
porters of music; that their musical tastes are low. 



588 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

4. What does sociology suggest as the fundamental social values of 
music? When society (as represented especially by the more thoughtful 
and influential in any social group) wishes more security, health, wealth, 
righteousness, knowledge, beauty, human fellowship, communion with 
God, racial growth, or other "goods," does it utilize music as a means? 
What kinds of music for specified purposes? Are these "values" realized 
chiefly through music rendered by the "expert" and heard by the multi- 
tude? Or through general rendition, even crude? What does history 
suggest as to specific uses of music to produce: courage for combat in 
warriors ; devoutness in worshipers ; fineness of sentiment between court- 
ing men and women ; cooperation in hard work ; mitigation of grief ; 
smoothing out of social disharmonies, antagonisms, or aloofness; good 
fellowship of the imperfectly acquainted; conviction of sin? What special 
kinds of music have served these purposes? What is the situation in 
these respects to-day among more primitive peoples? 

5. Does well informed opinion give a large place to music to-day as 
a means of promoting : property honesty ; sex morality ; religious devotion ; 
courage in time of battle ; cooperation in toil ; resignation of the op- 
pressed ; elevation of the mating instincts ; parental, fraternal, and filial 
devotions ; refinement of the sensual nature ; democratic fellowship ? 
What kinds of music, and in what situations ? What other means are 
frequently given precedence over music in realizing important "values" 
here? 

6. Have the "values" of music in the past been largely individual 
— that is, satisfaction of individual cravings for beauty quite regard- 
less of general social consequences ? Is popular interest in music in 
America of the present chiefly inspired by desires for individual gratifi- 
cation? Does this interest determine character and vogues of "popular" 
music? 

7. Is music at times antisocial in its consequences? Can it be used 
to promote sensuality, idleness, combativeness, hate, irreligion, selfishness? 
What kinds? Are the devotees — and especially the connoisseurs, amateur 
performers, and professional performers — of music usually more, or less, 
social or "virtuous" (in the larger sense) than other persons of equal 
intelligence and opportunity ? Consider separately as regards : patriotism ; 
property morality; domestic or sexual morality; industriousness ; fellow- 
ship ; religiousness ; healthf ulness. 

8. What are differences of resulting "values" between "good" and "bad" 
music? How shall we "evaluate" Home, Sweet Home; the Last Rose of 
Summer; Jesus, Lover of My Soul; Tenting on the Old Camp Ground; 



MUSIC 589 

Foster's compositions? The popular gospel hymns? So-called "negro 
melodies"? The Marseillaise f What are the "criteria" of "good" music? 
Do these include : its popular or "democratic" appeal ? Its power of 
producing "social results" ? Are musicians the best judges of the kinds 
of music that should be promoted at public expense? What is the evi- 
dence ? 

9. How are we to explain the seeming facts that : America has pro- 
duced almost no first-rate composers ; that the Great War produced almost 
no enduring new songs in English ; that congregational singing is main- 
tained with great difficulty by churches ; that "community singing" thrives 
only under leaders of extraordinary magnetism; that enormous sums are 
spent for the music of the phonograph and for that supplementing 
moving-picture exhibitions ? 

10. Only in the light of at least tentatively accepted answers to the 
above questions can we finally answer these questions : Why should public 
funds be employed in the teaching of music? What specific objectives 
of powers should control in such teaching? Why? What specific 
standards of taste or appreciation should control? Why? To whom 
should we devote the major portion of our effort and resources? Why? 
At what ages should results be chiefly sought? How "smooth out" the 
fads and individualistic procedures of a teaching field that is exceptionally 
productive of individualism? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

CooLEY, C. H. Social Process (Ch. 25, Art and Social Idealism). 
Farnsworth, C. H. Education Through Music (Ch. 19, The Broad and 

Narrow View of Education in Relation to Music). 
Farwell, a. Music in America (Vol. IV, In the Art of Music; Ch. 10, 

Musical Education in America). 
Forsyth, C. Music and Nationalism (Ch. 3, The Influence of World 

Power on Music). 
Hall, G. S. Educational Problems (Ch. 2, The Pedagogy of Music). 
Johnston, C. H. HigJi School Education (Ch. 17, The Place of Music 

[Farnsworth]). 
JuDD, C. H. Psychology of High School Subjects (Ch. 15, The Fine 

Arts). 
Newton, E. W. Music in the Public Schools. 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 22, Problems of 

the Place of Music and Graphic Art). 



590 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Spaulding, W. R. Music: An Art and a Language (Ch. 20, The Varied 

Tendencies of Modern Music). 
Thorndike, a. H. Literature in a Changing Age (Ch. 10, Beauty and 

Art). 
Tolstoi, L. N. What Is Art? (Ch. 10, Poetic and Musical Art). 



CHAPTER XLV 

THE PRACTICAL ARTS 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE childhood of each one of us constitutes a rich mine, when prop- 
erly considered, of the experiences that should guide us in providing 
education in all those regions where school and non-school agencies blend 
with one another — physical play, oral speech, manners, "small-group" 
ideals, and participation in practical arts. 

Nature gives us not only strong instincts to play, as that is commonly 
defined, but hardly less strong instincts to imitate the purposive activities 
of elders. The sight of a man working with a hammer, knife, hose, gun, 
automobile, paint brush, or spade, causes the boy from four to fourteen 
to want to "try his hand." The normal girl wishes to imitate the cooking, 
dressing, child care, and teaching activities of her elders. 

In the childish years before ten or twelve such imitations are apt to 
be sporadic and fragmentary. Perhaps we should say the imitative activity 
is an end in itself — the outcome or product is secondary and incidental. 
But in early adolescence it is certainly true that most normal natures are 
no longer satisfied with mere activity — they want product. Little children 
can be satisfied with mud pies ; but older ones wish to center their efiforts 
in pies that will be eaten — and with praise for the maker. Small boys 
can be satisfied with make-believe guns or wagons or hoes ; the older ones 
want "practicable" tools which will give valuable product. 

A fairly primitive home, farm, harbor, workshop, or "store" environ- 
ment gives a large amount of scope for youthful participations in the 
activities of elders ; but when home or farm or other agency becomes 
highly organized, and especially when residence and work become "urban- 
ized," then tools disappear largely from the ken of children. Power- 
driven machinery is too dangerous, destructible, or complex for youthful 
hands. Hence come the problems of offering practical arts in schools. 

1. Recall various opportunities for "practical arts" participation given you 
by your environment: (a) before ten years of age; (&) from ten to thirteen; 
(c) after thirteen. Separately consider: cooking; hunting; tillage; fishing; 
freighting (or transport, or portering) ; house repair or upkeep; bedmaking; 
room care; gardening; and others. 

2. What were the contributions of your schools, either in opportunities or 
proficiencies, for these ? 

3. What, as you recall, were the "deprivations" in practical arts experience 

591 



592 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

inflicted on your youth? How would scouting have helped? Richer school 
facilities? 

4. What cases have you observed where practical arts experience, either in 
school or elsewhere, has helped in "vocation finding" ? Have you known 
cases where school manual training was definitely "pre-vocational" to a voca- 
tion later followed? 

5. Should hunting, typewriting, and errand running be regarded as "prac- 
tical arts" just as much as cooking, cabinetmaking, sewing, and electrical 
work? 

6. In your experience, what are characteristic manipulative interests shown 
by individuals: (a) under the ages of six years; (b) between the ages of 
six and ten; (c) between the ages of ten and fifteen; (d) between sixteen and 
twenty-five ? 

At what ages do amateur manipulative interests include considerable de- 
sires to make a "serviceable product" such as: useful furniture; meals that 
may be eaten; dresses that may be worn; garden products that may be con- 
sumed; fish and game that may contribute to the larder; typewriting that will 
be read; etc. From the standpoint of productivity, what are the characteristics 
of amateur productive interests throughout mature life? 

7. Is it probably correct to assume that boys and girls between the ages of 
eleven or twelve at the lowest and sixteen and seventeen at the highest have 
reached the highest point in development of those interests which combine 
qualities of play and desires for productive achievement of a socially useful 
nature? For what reasons may it be important that city boys from twelve to 
sixteen should have abundant opportunities to perform various kinds of work 
with tools and materials largely employed in the productive occupations of 
men? Discuss in terms of carpentry, printing, gardening, live-*tock raising, 
hunting, fishing, wireless telegraphy, automobile driving, boatmaking, type- 
writing, selling, foundry work, house painting, etc. 

It is sometimes urged that these activities are important for pre-vocational 
reasons. Suggest limitations to these, for example, in case of boys of more 
than average ability in a suburban high school, prosperous parents, and every 
prospect of entering college. Can house carpentry, hunting, printing, or 
foundry work be regarded as pre-vocational for these boys? Given boys in 
urban homes, of pronounced mechanical interests, of average or less than 
average mentality — would carpentry probably be pre-vocational for these? 

8. In some cities the "handyman" ideal (that is, of the man possessed of 
various minor skills to be employed outside of vocation in adult life) is in- 
tended to control in amateur practical arts education. List various forms of 
skill more or less useful to adult householders in village or small urban 
communities where separate houses prevail. Consider separately printing, 
painting, varnishing, minor plumbing, minor electrical work, minor gas-engine 
work, bookbinding, machine woodwork, concrete work. 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 593 

It is urged by some that the primary efforts of amateur practical arts 
should be simply "developmental" experience. Justify under this head such 
subjects as wireless telegraphy, hunting, concrete work, machine working of 
iron and steel, bookbinding, gardening, camp cooking, etc. Examine the list 
of badge activities of the Boy Scout Manual with a view to determining which 
of these are, in your estimation, "developmental." 



PRACTICAL ARTS IN SCHOOLS 

Practical arts as a school subject is best defined to include all manipu- 
lative activities based on, or derived from the productive work of adults, 
and which are employed in schools primarily for purposes of education. 
Thus gardening, cooking, typewriting, furniture-making, road-making, 
bookbinding, wireless operating, and hundreds of other projects, are used, 
or can be devised, to give valuable experience and insight to children from 
six to sixteen years of age. Many of these will have interest for these 
children because they simulate or even imitate the productive activities 
carried on by elders. 

All the economically productive activities of primitive rnen (including 
defense), as well as a large proportion of those of civilized men, first 
appear as useful arts — that is, as elaborated processes in which applied 
science plays a small or secondary part, but in which trial-and-error 
methods have given a great variety and amount of useful customs which 
are passed on from elders to youngers largely by imitation. Thus hunt- 
ing, fishing, planting, harvesting, milking, butter making, building, mining, 
irrigating, transporting, fabric making, cooking, furniture making, metal 
working, and the other divisions of economic activity, give literally 
hundreds of examples of useful arts (as distinguished from the fine or 
esthetic arts) which growing youth is instinctively desirous of imitating. 
But when any field of economic practice comes to rest largely on applied 
science, it is not certain that the imitative impulses of youth either do, or 
should be expected to, respond as they do toward the more primitive forms 
of productive activities. 

Children growing up in a primitive environment find abundant oppor- 
tunities in their household and neighborhood environments to exercise 
instincts of manipulative construction. In such an environment of un- 
specialized economic activities, children are given access, first in the 
play spirit, and then as helpers, to a wide range of manipulative experi- 
ences. Americans can readily picture such a situation on any frontier 
farm. Here, boys, beginning as earl}- as six or seven years of age, take 



594 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

part in hunting, fishing, herding, woodcutting, driving, planting, clearing, 
butchering, harvesting, building, cooking, and scores of other occupations. 
All the tools used by adults, from guns and axes to mowing machines and 
automobiles, are not only visible and accessible to the growing boy, but 
frequent opportunities come, very early, for him to try his hand in their 
use. Soon this voluntary . and eager use is supplemented by enforced 
use in chores and prescribed routines. 

In the modem economic environment, whether of the city or the well 
ordered farm, these opportunities for youthful participation in economic 
activities, in a spirit that is partly of childhood and partly of manhood, 
are progressively shorn away. The boy in the suburb, as well as the 
boy on a prosperous prairie farm, is not much needed as a helper in the 
economic activities being carried on around him. He can hardly be per- 
mitted to touch the costly and formidable tools which skilled men use. 
If he is to get experience of the kind he craves, he must get it through 
amateur activities largely divorced from the productive work by which 
he is surrounded. 



OBJECTIVES OF PRACTICAL ARTS 

Practical arts for schools can best be defined as any creative or con- 
structive activities which in large part imitate or reproduce the economic 
productive activities of contemporary men and women. These would 
therefore include hunting, tillage, livestock, trade, household, commercial, 
and factory projects. The definition excludes those activities which imi- 
tate only historic activities — fighting or hunting with bows and arrows, 
fire-making by friction, grain-grinding by hand, or spinning — and all 
those followed primarily by adults for play — dancing, card-playing, and 
those activities properly called sports (though it includes school work 
in making the implements of sports). It should also exclude all those 
activities imitative of adult productive activities in which it is virtually 
impossible for the youth to produce a thing of any utility — writing an 
essay, painting a picture, inventing a machine, laying out a city, and the 
like. 

The dominant spirit found in true practical arts work should clearly 
be neither purely vocational at one extreme nor irresponsible mud-pie play 
at the other. The actual spirit is most nearly designated by the word 
"amateur" — as in the amateur hunter, fisherman, gardener, woodcutter, 
stock breeder, photographer, bookbinder, wireless operator, poet, house- 
builder, cook, salesman, lacemaker, stamp-collector, taxidermist, explorer, 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 595 

scout. The amateur is not wholly actuated by ideals of useful product; 
but there must be some product to satisfy. But the work must offer a 
measure of "satisfaction" in itself — something frequently missing from 
vocational activities. 

The controlling primary purpose in practical arts programs may be 
sought in any one of several directions (note that one primary purpose 
must always determine choice of ways and means, whilst many secondary 
or incidental purposes can be served more or less as accompaniments). 
The primary purpose may shift from one field to another for different 
age levels or other differing conditions. 

Given : One hundred boys, ages twelve to thirteen, in the seventh grade 
of a large junior high school, who will probably leave school between 
fourteen and sixteen and become juvenile workers in a great variety of 
commercial and factory vocations. They are only fair in academic studies, 
but have active mechanical and sporting interests, which their apartment- 
•house urban environment does but little to satisfy. Their school can 
offer up to two hours daily of practical arts projects in grades 7 and 8. 

Any one of these purposes could control in determinination of specific 
objectives : 

1. Vocational preparatory, or pre-vocational, in which each pupil, 
having chosen a general line, — commercial, printing, mechanical shop, 
gardening, — would be trained in the simpler manipulative and technical 
phases of some vocation within that field. 

2. Vocation finding or guidance, in which the learner would "sample" 
a number of trades or departments of work with a view to discovering 
his own interests, or revealing his aptitudes. 

3. Providing realistic centers of correlation for certain more abstract 
studies, such as arithmetic, drawing, English composition, and even geog- 
raphy. 

4. Training the learner in the various "self-service," "handy man," or 
"vocational minor" activities that fall in greater or less degree to all, and 
especially to home-owners — including minor repairs of furniture, doors, 
stoves, plumbing, automobiles, clothes, as well as some simpler constructive 
work in gardening, painting and varnishing, cooking, furniture making, 
etc. 

5. Using practical arts projects as means of training in buying and 
utilizing appreciations and standards — furniture, foods, bookbindings, 
jewelry, typography, tools, etc. 

6. Using practical arts projects as means of general development in 
experience, growth, appreciation, etc., quite without reference to any other 



596 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

practical outcomes — thus paralleling sports at their best, and catering 
directly to amateur interests. 

Primary aims in practical arts will greatly affect methods. Obviously, 
purposes i and 2 would restrict offerings to fields in which future voca- 
tions would probably be found, and methods probably should be rigorous 
and realistic, expressing the vocational rather than the amateur spirit. 
Purpose 3 is a vague one as yet in these grades, where further learning 
in such subjects as arithmetic and English language demands a consider- 
able degree of specialization of objectives. Purposes 4 and 5 should 
restrict projects to those likely to prove serviceable. Purpose 6 throws 
the field wide open obviously, and permits very great flexibility, both as 
to projects and as to methods. 

These general considerations are probably valid : 

1. Amateur constructive or practical arts interests are at their zenith 
normally between twelve and fourteen. Later they tend to be replaced 
by vocational interests, if economic need is keenly perceived. Purely play- 
interests suffice in earlier years. 

2. Only a few persons have genuine vocational interests between twelve 
and fourteen or earlier. Only a small number of pupils are so situated as 
to need vocation finding in these years. 

3. Any considerable enforcement of "handyman" workmanship stand- 
ards in these years would probably kill interest in the subject. The 
same result would probably follow exacting use of projects as correlation 
centers. 

4. True practical arts projects diminish in practicability as we descend 
in grades. Mimic or toy projects largely satisfy in the first three years — 
dolls, mimic houses, sand representations, paper construction, plastic rep- 
resentation, block printing, toy weaving, mimic trains, toy pistols, etc. — 
hence these can be adapted to service as centers of correlation, as more 
nearly productive projects for higher grades can not. 

5. If "developmental" objectives control in practical arts from twelve 
to fourteen or even sixteen, there can be found no good reasons for: 
uniform prescriptions of specific types of work for all ; prescription of 
either minimum time or of minimum standards of achievement in par- 
ticular projects, or exclusion of straight imitation of models as one valu- 
able method of learning. 

6. All good practical arts work should center in projects as the basis 
of organization and method. But around each project should center 
much vivid reading and, where practicable, picture materials, and visita- 
tion, whilst various models or "constructs" by others should be available. 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 597 

Projects should be outlined in detailed "guide pamphlets" for self-help in 
learning. 

Practical arts in rural schools present certain distinctive problems, 
since : 

1. The environments of these pupils permit (and sometimes enforce) a 
large range of imitative and minor vocational manipulative activities from 
eight to fourteen years of age — -burden carrying, spading, woodchopping, 
nut gathering, game shooting, harnessi'ng, nailing, hay pitching, cattle 
driving, transplanting, weeding, cooking, butter churning, pumping, stable 
cleansing, and numberless other choring activities, some by boys and some 
by girls. Many of the detailed arts thus learned, often under compulsion, 
function vocationally later. 

2. What, for urban dwellers and other followers of specialized voca- 
tions, become "handyman" arts, are for the farm man or woman simply 
phases of vocation, taking time denied to other work because of weather, 
etc. Thus woodchopping, ditching, wall building, various forms of repair, 
poultry and garden raising, shoe repair, and the like, should be taught 
as parts of vocations of farming and home-making — farm mechanics, 
home mechanics, etc., at suitable ages from fifteen onward. 

Developmental practical arts for rural boys from eleven to fourteen 
or fifteen could, obviously, include projects from: printing, photography, 
telegraphy, bookbinding, jewelry making, wireless, furniture making, and 
other "urban" arts. Are these desirable or permissible ? 

Or the subject could center in: gardening, automobile repair, house 
repair, small animal husbandry, piping of water supply, window screening, 
clothes pressing, road making. What purposes should control? Practical 
arts can take one out into the big world, or hold him back in his own yard. 
Which is to be preferred? Would a normal fourteen-year-old on a farm 
prefer to rig up a pump to supply the house, or set up a wireless appa- 
ratus? Which would be more educative? Educative for what purposes? 

Rural environments ofifer extra-school facilities for certain kinds of 
practical arts that are not paralleled in urban environments, — at least, for 
boys, — land, animals, vehicles, tools, wood, water, etc. Also standards 
of execution exacted in painting, fencing, and many others are within 
powers of boys from ten to sixteen years of age. 

RANGE OF PRACTICAL ARTS 

The principal sources of practical arts projects suitable for use in 
schools can conveniently be classified as follows : 



598 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

1. Agricultural arts: home gardening; treeplanting and nursing; 
poultry raising; food packing; "corn club" work; pig clubs; milking; 
butter and cheese making; fruit drying; farm products marketing; farm 
mechanics ; etc. 

2. Industrial arts: cloth weaving; house repair and building; house 
painting; installation of screens, drainage, water supply, electric bells, 
electric lighting, central heating; machine dissection and reassembly 
(sewing machines, guns, lawn rAowers, stoves, pumps, bicycles, motors, 
optical instruments, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, lathes, etc.) ; 
bookbinding; printing; photography; wall papering and decoration; 
fabrication of playground apparatus ; furniture making ; tool sharpening ; 
wall building ; road construction ; boat building ; photo mounting ; engrav- 
ing; mechanical draughting; pottery and glass making; shoe repairing; 
tailoring and clothing repair; and scores of others. 

3. Commercial arts: typewriting; business penmanship, arithmetic, 
documents, English; display advertising; selling; bookkeeping; package 
making ; comptometer ; filing ; banking ; telegraphy ; dictaphone, etc. 

4. Household arts : kitchen cooking ; camp cooking, food cooking, food 
buying, food serving; house planning; toy house construction; home (or 
room) decoration; furniture choosing, distribution, upkeep; bedmaking; 
repair (or upkeep) of apparatus for plumbing, heating, lighting, cleaning, 
ventilating, screening, sewing, cooking; infant nursing (feeding, cleaning, 
dressing, exercising) ; sick nursing; decorative window and yard garden- 
ing; clothing buying, making, repairing; accounting; entertaining; fes- 
tivals ; and many others. 

5. Nautical arts: fishing; fish planting; boatmaking; boat sailing; etc. 

INDUSTRIAL ARTS OFFERINGS 

In a certain large urban junior high school are regularly to be found 
some two hundred boys, from twelve to sixteen years of age, of whom 
these facts are substantially true: they are from artisan class urban en- 
vironment, and range from slightly above average to inferior abilities ; 
very few of them will remain in school after fifteen years of age; most 
of them will become manual workers in various fields ; few of them now 
have more than meager opportunities to get practical arts experience, 
though nearly all have fairly strong mechanical interests ; 60 per cent, are 
in the seventh and eighth grades, the rest scattered through grades 3 to 6 — 
these retarded ones having their special classes in the junior high school. 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 599 

where they are expected to fit into classes of advanced boys in practical 
arts. 

Recommendations for practical arts for these boys are submitted as 
follows : 

1. Provide a large shop room — with a thousand square feet or more 
of floor space, including booths for exhibits. 

2. Install one unit of equipment for each of such industrial arts activ- 
ities as hand cabinetmaking, forging, photography, job printing, electric 
bell installation, bicycle repair, tool grinding, and a score of others, as 
available. Back of each unit equipment have illustrated reading matter — 
books for amateurs, catalogues, and the like. Keep exhibits of suc- 
cessful examples of work — to be copied, if desired. 

3. All work is arranged on project basis; and for each project there is 
a booklet, or set of guide sheets, to be followed by the pupil after he has 
elected a project and had his choice approved by the instructor. 

4. Once a boy elects a project, he must see it through in good amateur 
spirit or get out of the shop. But when he has completed a project in 
one field, there is no reason why he should not elect his next project in a 
quite unrelated field. 

5. If the school has a "long" school day — seven or eight hours — there 
is no reason why boys should not be permitted to give two hours a day 
to this shop — always provided they are working onward and upward in 
the true amateur spirit. 

HOUSEHOLD ARTS OFFERINGS 

Should we teach household arts in junior high schools? Should we 
require it of all girls, or leave it as a free elective? Should it be given 
about 10 per cent., or preferably 30 per cent., of school time? Should 
we make it an exacting and strenuous, or an amateur and playlike, subject? 
Should we especially enlphasize practical skills, or technical knowledge, 
or ideals and appreciations? 

But there remain more fundamental questions. What do we mean 
specifically by household arts? What are its values — cultural, healthful, 
civic, vocational — to girls of junior high school ages? What are the other 
values, — in arithmetic, English language, music, hygiene, general science, 
history, geography, — all of more or less importance, that must be sought, 
on behalf of these girls, through their schooling? Are all junior high 
school girls substantially alike as to their abilities, interests, prospects, and 



6oo EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

needs? What relationship can household arts be made to bear toward 
self-service in personal hygiene, thrift, right living, life guidance ; toward 
the vocation of assistant home-maker, as daughter or domestic; or 
toward full responsibility home-maker, as wife and mother, or, occasion- 
ally, as wage-earning housekeeper? None of these questions are as yet 
adequately answered in the technical literature of education. We can, 
however, obtain some light on them by applying to their study certain 
devices of sociological analysis. 

Let us assume the existence of a junior high school of fifteen hundred 
pupils, receiving only seventh and eighth grades, besides all pupils of 
lower grades who are over twelve years of age. We will think of this as 
an amply equipped and staffed school, serving a prosperous American city 
of fifty thousand population. 

This school contains the children of prosperous, comfortable, and 
poor parents — some recent immigrants, the majority of white "native 
stock." Nearly all the girls over twelve and under fourteen or fifteen are 
here — the superaverage, the average, and the subaverage in intelligence. 
Some will eventually go through college, some will leave to go to work 
just after their fourteenth birthday. Four fifths of the girls will be 
"gainfully employed" for a few years after leaving school. Ninety 
per cent, of those of lower economic station, and 70 per cent, of those 
of higher economic station, will marry before twenty-five. Of those 
who marry, perhaps half, by any reasonable standards, will become good, 
but not best, home-makers by virtue of "pick-up" and "trial-and-error" 
methods, even if the schools teach nothing resembling household arts. 
Perhaps half will fall short of being even average home-makers if left 
to home training and pick-up methods. 

The seven hundred and fifty girls of this school are, obviously, a 
diversified crowd — diversified as respects abilities, environments, interests, 
prospects. It is part of the business of the junior high school, part of 
the integrating function of education, to smooth' out some of these diver- 
sities, but possibly it should accentuate others, on the principle of "to them 
that hath shall be given." Let us diagnose certain social case groups. 

In Case-Group Q are nearly one hundred girls of whom the following 
facts are substantially true: they come from prosperous or comfortable 
homes; they are above the average in intelligence, mentality, or ability, 
however named ; they will almost certainly go through high school, 
and many will go to normal school or college; their homes give them 
little mastery of the executive or "doing" side of home crafts, but do give 
them a large stock of appreciations of good dress, good food, clean 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 6oi 

rooms, social behavior, and orderly households. From their homes, too, 
they get a goodly stock of habits, and some ideals, of hygienic and sani- 
tary practices. They have now little feeling of responsibility for the 
home, or vital interest in their own later home life. They dearly love 
"good times," and they take comfortable homes for granted, as they take 
air and city water. It may be a reasonable expectation that, as women, 
they will have none too good health, either as gainful workers or as home- 
makers. Their ambitions will tend to outrun their physical and financial 
powers, and not a few of them will deliberately evade the serious re- 
sponsibilities of home-making and family Hfe from social selfishness or 
under the mistaken assumption that other things are more important. 
Some will in mature years become civic workers of a high order. 

Case-Group R consists of the daughters of prosperous famiHes, but 
afflicted with less than average intelligence. Their parents will probably 
keep them in schools, of one kind or another, until they are eighteen, 
or even twenty years of age, but they can not graduate from high schools. 
Not a few of these will be selfish, self-indulgent, extravagant, foolish. 
Some will find work in clerical positions or salesmanship ; and some will 
remain as dependents. A large proportion will marry, and their home- 
making will be variable. 

Case-Group S consists of one hundred girls of less than average ability 
from the poorer homes of the city. Few of these girls will remain in 
school after the period of compulsory school attendance comes to an end. 
They will seek wage-earning work in factories, ten-cent stores, and restaur- 
ants. All but a few will have married by twenty-four, mostly to artisans, 
railway workers, or clerks on inferior wages. Their homes will be 
cramped, and, as children increase, their lives will tend to become more 
dingy, a bit sordid, and lacking in serenity, at least, as judged by stand- 
ards of social workers. 

Case-Group T consists of at least fifty girls of superior or higher 
intelligence from low economic surroundings. These will move rapidly 
through to the high school, where many will take stenography, and a few 
will prepare to teach. They must become at least self-supporting by 
sixteen or eighteen, and may even be called upon to help support their 
families. Not a few will tend to overwork their none too strong bodies. 
They will become ambitious to marry above their fathers' station, and 
a considerable proportion, not finding just what they want in husbands, 
will prefer celibacy with its independence and higher standards of dress 
and amusements. 

While these case-groups will in actual practice more or less blend into 



6o2 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

each other, it is practicable, nevertheless, to consider them separately for 
the purposes of curriculum making, and, in as large a school as that here 
postulated, it would be easily and economically practicable, by elective or 
alternative studies, to vary the programs of the different groups, in so far 
as parents and teachers might agree upon differences of abilities and 
needs. 

No strictly home-making vocational education, in the sense of train- 
ing, is practicable or desirable during this under-fourteen period. The 
girls who go to work at, or soon after, fourteen will usually enter special- 
ized vocations for which a few weeks of specific training, apart from the 
junior high school, would give all the preparation practicable at this age. 
But it ought to be expected that at seventeen or nineteen or twenty-two 
many of these girls could and, given facilities, will "come back" to specific 
vocational "upgrading" schools for adjustment to adult vocations. A few 
hours, probably thirty, or sixty at most, might well be devoted to voca- 
tional guidance during the six months next preceding departure from the 
junior high school. 

Let us assume that in this junior high school: (a) no household arts is 
prescribed for all pupils; (b) all girls are required to take a course each 
year (equal to sixty clock hours) of hygiene, plus needed physical train- 
ing; and (c) each girl is given opportunity to elect, as alternative to 
other courses, one or two household arts courses from the three that are 
offered, as described below. 

What household arts or related courses might such a school offer? The 
following at least are theoretically feasible : 

I. Two "Home Self-Service" courses, A for seventh grade and re- 
tarded girls, and B for eighth grade, ninety hours each, designed especially 
to teach wage-earning girls or those who are later to become college girls 
to care for their own health, finances, apparel, associations, and general 
living conditions. They emphasize instruction in such technical matters as 
food values, wholesome recreation, and rest ; and training in short units of 
clothing upkeep and renovation, laundry, and possibly light food prepara- 
tion, to which is added instruction in right buying, simple personal ac- 
counts, and possibly social recreation. Some of the powers and apprecia- 
tions thus acquired will obviously carry over in part into later home- 
making. But it is a mistake to call this work "home-making," since the 
essence of true home-making is service to others, and only incidentally to 
one's self. Besides, this is not the age at which we may expect motives 
(except amateur) for home-making to be active, except in rare cases; 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 603 

whereas a substantial proportion of the girls, especially from poorer homes, 
may have very genuine motives for "home self-service." 

2. Tv^ro courses, C and D, "Household Arts for Amateurs," maximum 
of one hundred and eighty hours each year, would use the scouting 
spirit, involve little drudgery, and many attractive projects, accompanied 
by much alluring reading about homes, foods, children, parties, house 
care, nursing, home gardening, pets. These should be general cultural 
courses, designed to enrich experience first of all, but secondarily to give 
appreciations of homes, home-making, and modern scientific and artistic 
achievements in domestic fields. Where cooperation of homes could be 
secured, projects — meal preparation, cake making, child care, room care, 
furniture renovation, laundry, garden, dressmaking, entertainment — would 
be developed from the school, approved by the mother, and executed by 
one or a group of pupils under supervision of the teacher. Not only 
should not such courses be required of all, but nO' particular projects or 
readings should be required of all alike. The utmost flexibility should 
prevail. Pupils failing to take hold properly should simply be asked 
to withdraw, at least for a time, since they disturb the proper voluntary 
spirit. 

3. A "Technical Home-Making" course, E, one hundred and eighty 
hours, four hours a week for one year, but open to mature girls of seventh 
or lower grades, as well as eighth-grade girls. A course as rigorous in its 
methods as arithmetic, based upon careful study of a central textbook, 
supplemented by laboratory practice, and calculated to give a store of 
knowledge, and some ideals, rather than skills. Such a course should give 
much information about modern advances in home-making — buying, food 
values, child health, use of power-driven appliances (not overlooking that 
American urban homes have generally achieved two, at least, of the great- 
est labor-saving devices ever invented — piped water supply and piped 
sewage disposal), art in domestic life, the dfeeper social significance of 
home and family life. It is the writer's belief that such a course as this 
would appeal to fifteen or twenty per cent, of girls, especially the more 
imaginative and ambitious, and would- give them at least as much profit as 
their grammar and arithmetic do now, and more than will the later physics 
and foreign language. Such a course should never be a required course. 
In a small school, however, administrative limitations in respect to alterna- 
tives might make it, if the one chosen to be offered, in effect required, but 
that is due to poverty of opportunity, not educational need. 

Let us assume our school equipped with a good advisory service. What 



6o4 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

courses would these advisors recommend to the girls most nearly represent- 
ing the various case-groups ? 

For Case-Group R they would recommend courses C and D — Household 
Arts for Amateurs. They would do this in the expectation that these 
girls have yet several years to spend in schools, and are virtually certain 
to study some kind of "hard" home economics later. Furthermore, it is 
important that these girls of meager endowment, but favoring environ- 
ment, be stimulated along lines of high-grade practical arts activities to 
offset the discouragements they experience from failures in abstract 
studies. 

For Case-Group S would be recommended Home Self-Service Courses 
A and B, on the assumptions: (1) that these girls, because of their 
environment, have much to learn as to care of health, earnings, characters ; 
(2) that, going soon into wage-earning work, they will cease to be inter- 
ested in the executive side of home-making, although as boarders and in 
self-supporting capacities they may be expected to develop a wide variety 
of tastes and appreciations of good, fashionable, and perhaps costly 
things; (3) that if society is wise it will offer very concentrated and 
practical full-time courses in home-making (eight hours daily for perhaps 
three months, and based chiefly on the out-project method — productive 
projects away from homes — and preferably not in the girl's own home) at 
ages 20 to 25, perhaps just preceding marriage, supplemented by very prac- 
tical afternoon extension courses for them after they begin home-making. 

For Case-Groups Q and T recommendations would vary according 
to individuals. But, given the opportunity of electing Course E as an al- 
ternative to an advanced course in arithmetic, or a foreign language, 
or English grammar, it is certain that many of these bright girls would 
take the "hard" technical Course E, especially as it is not certain that, 
with their ambitions, they can or will pause for similar work later in school 
or college. Many of these girls will become intellectual leaders. From 
some of them will come future teachers of home economics. If they are 
to be saved, in a physical sense, from themselves, they should early 
acquire better perspectives as to health values, maternity values, and 
sound home social values than are now acquired by our ambitious, con- 
scientious, energetic middle-class daughters. They may be expected to 
control their future environments and conditions more on the basis of 
"reason and science" than on the basis of faiths and skills. 

But none of the courses should be closed to girls from any case- 
group, except for two reasons:. (a) they need the time for other studies 
more essential to their purposes, if these are defined, or to "make up" 



THE PRACTICAL ARTS 605 

denciencies ; and (b) after entering a course they fail to develop the 
proper spirit, important to all courses, or the required ability (a warrant- 
able exclusion only from Course E). On the other hand, there is no 
reason why any girl should be required to take any of the courses named 
if the school is large and rich enough to offer useful alternative courses. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

BoNSER, F. G. The Elementary School Curriculum (Ch. 9, The Prac- 
tical Arts). 

Dopp, K. E. The Place of Industries in Elementary Education. 

Greene, M. L. Among School Gardens. 

Hall, G. S. Youth (Ch. 4, Manual Training and Sloyd). 

Inglis, a. Principles of Secondary Education (Ch. 17, The Place of the 
Practical and Vocational Arts). 

Lee, Joseph. Play in Education (Ch. 45-48, The Apprentice Age). 

O'Shea, M. V. Dynamic Factors in Education (Ch. 4 and 5, Manual 
Activities in Education). 

Scott, Colin. Social Education (Ch. 10, Manual Arts). 

Snedden, D. Vocational Education (Ch. 15, The Practical Arts in Gen- 
eral Education). 



CHAPTER XLVI 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE ^ 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

IN a simple social order where production centers largely in the house- 
hold group, it is natural for boys maturing to the point where they 
must assume vocational responsibilities to imitate, and to follow after, 
their fathers. Similarly, girls imitate the vocations of their mothers. 

Where armies, or commerce, or proselytizing religions weave their 
strands across the social fabric, increasing proportions of boys desert the 
homestead and village. Some guilds — and, of course, most of all a 
celibate priesthood — long recruited their novices outside their own ranks. 
The discovery of new continents for exploration and settlement greatly 
disrupted the old settled order. In a New World of opportunity it be- 
comes the approved thing for boys and girls to aspire to higher stations 
than those occupied by their parents. 

The modern professions, industries, and commerce — and increasingly 
agriculture — subdivide and specialize until each of their specialties is 
"most worth while" only to a very limited range of general ability and 
special talent ; while to any one of them only relatively few persons are 
adapted in "optimum degree." The modern city opens to young workers a 
bewildering maze of vocational opportunities. For the novice many of 
these are invitingly simple and easy — and they pay well for beginners. 
But they may be apples of Sodom from the standpoint of promotion in 
responsibility or pay. 

Nearly all workers in this maze are pathetically in need of guidance. 
But that need is especially acute in the apprentice and journeyman years 
from fifteen to twenty-five. Social economists are agreed that losses 
through vocational misfitting are now very great, and frequently terribly 
tragic. The reader's own experience will show this in part : 

I. Through what means have certain adults, known to you, and now suc- 
cessfully settled in their vocations, "found themselves" ? Give separate con- 
sideration to : influence of parents ; influence of local available opportunities ; 
influence of associates other than teachers; influence of teachers and schools; 
accidental combinations of circumstances. 

In a modern large city, what seem to you to be the most wasteful factors 
in the ultimate selection of vocations? To what extent does it appear to you 
that among the adult workers in the following vocations there are now many 
misfits (a poor performer in a vocation is not necessarily a misfit — he is so 

606 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 607 

only when he could have done better in another): the medical profession; 
elementary-school teaching; clerical work in banks; farming; missionary serv- 
ice; factory-specialist operatives? 

What seem to you the relative needs of vocational guidance as between: 
large city and small town ; countryside and medium-sized city ; highly talented 
and poorly talented youth; youth of prosperous circumstances and those 
from poor homes; boys and girls; persons aged eighteen and others aged 
thirty? 

2. Analyze the vocational stages by which certain men and women now 
from forty to sixty years of age have passed the intervening years since the 
age of fourteen, having in mind particular : professional men ; business lead- 
ers; small owning farmers; factory operatives; unskilled miscellaneous work- 
ers. Is it prevailingly true that modern economic organization opens up a 
large variety of vocations that are essentially juvenile — that is, that are very 
well fitted for young workers, but almost wholly unsuited to mature workers? 
It was formerly said that young untrained workers must perforce enter "blind- 
alley" or "dead-end" occupations; would it not be more correct to say that 
nearly all lines of work open to immature persons in industry and commerce 
are of this character and therefore that they should be described without 
prejudice? What seem to you to be some noteworthy exceptions? Outside 
of the professions and a half-dozen trades, what are the vocations known to 
you upon which one may enter as practitioner or student at fifteen or sixteen 
years of age and continue an unbroken ascent during a long number of years? 
Consider from this standpoint the great majority of workers in: miscellaneous 
farming ; clerical occupations ; factory occupations ; railroading and other 
forms of transportation; mining; politics; and various forms of business 
leadership. 

3. In a certain junior high school more than 20 per cent, of the boys are 
substantially included within the following description: they come from pros- 
perous homes; they are of considerably more than average native ability; 
they are very social and fond of sports ; they live in a city in the Northern 
Mississippi Valley; they are healthy and of good moral character. What are 
the probabilities that any one of these, or at least any considerable number, 
will become : coal-mining operatives ; vagrants ; unskilled factory workers ? 
What are probabilities that any considerable number of them will enter pro- 
fessions? Will enter business on lower rungs of ladder and work toward 
higher positions? Will become owning farmers? 

In a similar' school are found one hundred girls to whom the following 
description substantially applies at thirteen years of age : they come from rela- 
tively poor, recent immigrant families ; they are of less than average native 
ability ; their homes are in a large commercial city ; they are keenly interested 
in dress and amusements, and but slightly in intellectual pursuits. What 
proportions of these will probably spend the years between sixteen and 



6o8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

twenty in minor factory and clerical pursuits? What proportion will eventu- 
ally enter professions? What are the probabilities that any will become busi- 
ness leaders? What proportion will probably be home-makers at thirty years 
of age? 

Segregate four other case-groups coming within your experience with a 
view to showing how vocational guidance can be very considerably simpli- 
fied by "processes of elimination" — of vocations from which they are barred 
by their abilities, lower or higher. 

4. What kinds of useful vocational knowledge can be given to miscellaneous 
aggregates of pupils of the seventh, ninth, and eleventh grades, respectively, 
by means of lectures, guided readings, moving pictures, and other means 
applicable to mass education? 

Contrast with this "informative guidance" the possibility of "diagnostic 
guidance" in which an expert in vocational guidance, and also in personal 
characteristics, studies in detail the qualities of an individual candidate with 
a view to making recommendations for subsequent practice of, or study of, a 
vocation. Compare possibilities of these two types of guidance with two types 
of health maintenance: (a,) informative collective instruction in hygiene, and 
(b) individual diagnosis of particular defects of eyes or teeth, with applica- 
tion of specific remedies. 



GUIDANCE 

The need for guidance of the young and inexperienced becomes very 
acute in all complex social environments. Where many courses are open 
in school or college, the need for educational guidance is urgent. Where 
young workers are confronted by a variety of vocational opportunities, 
the demands of which for specific forms of native ability, skills, and 
technical knowledge are unknown, vocational guidance becomes an in- 
dispensable means of preventing discouragement and loss of time. Right 
kinds of cultural education should be looked upon, in part, as contributing 
guidance toward use of leisure and further development of cultural tastes 
and interests. Good civic education should serve as guidance in the 
choice of political parties and of the political activities to which the 
educated person should devote himself. Good vocational schools seek to 
guide their graduates toward the most profitable places and conditions 
for the practice of their vocations. Eventually we may expect more pur- 
posive guidance than family, church, and friends now give toward the right 
choice of a conjugal mate and the upbuilding of a family. Health guidance 
is now a function of certain insurance and other private agencies ; and its 
rapid further evolution in the near future is practically assured. Invest- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 609 

ment guidance is obviously one of the crying needs of many mature per- 
sons in modern life. 

The factors of effective guidance include two as widely separated as 
are purposes and methods in education. First, guidance presupposes 
organized knowledge of the concrete or objective vocations, studies, 
parties, or other potential goals among which the guided individual is 
expected to choose. Second, it assumes knowledge of the individual 
guided — his native powers and other qualities, his acquired character- 
istics, and the social conditions to which, by law, custom, or interest, he 
is committed. 

The methods of guidance can be conveniently grouped under two 
heads : 

(a) Collective informative guidance is designed to place at the dis- 
posal of interested persons in large numbers information as to the various 
opportunities open — in studies, vocations, places of residence, parties, 
investment opportunities, competent medical service, and the like. In a 
sense, every college catalogue, high-school bulletin of courses, "booster 
prospectus" for residence or investment, and popular book on hygiene is 
a means of such collective guidance. Private vocational schools issue 
advertisements pointing out the lucrative opportunities of certain vocations. 
In schools, young people's societies, and elsewhere, speakers frequently 
are selected to extol particular vocations, possibly to treat of several in 
such a comparative way that novitiates may be guided in their choices. 

(b) Individual diagnosis and recommendation is the second funda- 
mental method of guidance. In crude form, this takes place when students 
consult instructors as to choice of courses or curricula in schools having 
flexibility of offerings. Physicians are frequently called upon to diagnose 
and to make recommendations not merely as to immediate precautions to 
be taken for cure or health conservation, but even as to occupations that 
should not be followed, and places of residence that should be sought. 
Employment authorities, and especially employment agencies, frequently 
supplement their refusals to employ, or to recommend for employment in 
specific fields, by suggestions as to other openings toward which it is 
desirable that the applicant look. 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE IN SCHOOLS 

The objectives of vocational guidance in schools can conveniently be 
included under these heads: i. First, the development, even in quite 
young children, of a substantial range of appreciations of the importance 



6io EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

in life of vocational success, the relative social usefulness or service of 
the various vocations, the importance and conditions of right selection, 
suitable preparation for, and proper advancement in, the several vocations, 
and the qualities called for in each. Much of this appreciational educa- 
tion can be effected through talks, readings, and other developmental 
methods as a part of general education — and, as suggested above, no 
serious harm, and probably much good, will result from its introduction 
on an elective basis as early as the grades of the junior high school, even 
in the case of those who will probably be able to secure the opportunities 
of professional education. 

2. Second, the specific testing of the individual as to native powers, 
acquired powers, and interests, and the relation of these to the require- 
ments and available opportunities presented by the various fields then open 
to him. 

In crude customary forms these two kinds of vocational adjustment 
are very old. In the older and simpler social orders it is natural for the 
boy tO' follow in the footsteps of his father in choosing his vocation, or 
else to learn his trade from some neighbor craftsman to whom the boy 
is apprenticed. Modern civilization has largely destroyed these old simple 
procedures. The lure of the "New World" or of the "West" or of the 
"city" now tempts probably more than a majority of youths away from 
ancestral vocations and places of abode. Democracy and opportunity in 
America are often taken to mean that the boy must "do better" than his 
father has done. Not only with the younger generation, but among the 
elders themselves, is it often deemed somewhat disgraceful to follow the 
parental calling. 

The work of the world has largely changed, too. Once almost any 
one could live on and from the soil ; now only men of more than average 
managerial ability can hope to succeed as landowning or tenant farmers. 
Our factories, mines, and railroads have places for "unskilled" labor; 
but they have more places of excellent opportunity for numberless special 
varieties of native talent coupled with well assimilated training. 

But in the great majority of fields of modern production the worker 
neither can nor should make a choice of vocation once for all. Specializa- 
tion not only differentiates man's vocations into numberless vertical 
strands : it creates horizontal strata as well. Cities and villages now oflfer 
abundance of vocational opportunities to juvenile workers from fifteen 
to eighteen; but these juvenile vocations not only do not, as a rule, lead 
directly into higher stages, but they lead nowhere. Once we called them, 
in our economic ignorance, "dead-end" or "blind-alley" vocations — as if 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 6ii 

mechanical specialization and power production could result in anything 
else. Even the vocations now followed hy the majority of men and women 
from eighteen to twenty- two or more years of age do not constitute their 
final "life work." Especially during the premarriage years of both men 
and women, there is endless experimentation, shifting, "hiring and firing," 
and roving, of workers. 

Out of these conditions emerges the modern need for vocational guid- 
ance. It is a twofold need — first, that the man seeking vocational adjust- 
ment shall know what are the opportunities to be found ; and, second, what 
are his own potential powers to take advantage of these. 

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE: SUMMARIZED 

A. Vocational guidance is essentially of two kinds — informative and diag- 
nostic. 

a. The first includes imparting of information to individuals or groups 
about: varieties of work now available in the world; native and acquired 
qualities most suited to the performance of each type; idealization of right 
work attitudes, vocational advancement, etc. (Compare with school and class 
instruction in hygiene, idealization of health, and the like.) For these ends 
can be used : lectures, guided readings, various emotional appeals. Courses 
(not in too formal a sense) can be offered as electives to classes prevailingly 
from thirteen to fourteen years of age, fifteen to sixteen years of age, and at 
other age levels. Informative vocational guidance is properly a part of general 
education. 

h. Diagnostic guidance includes expert examination of an individual with 
a view to definite recommendations, possibly prescriptions, as to : kinds of 
work he is now unfitted for; kinds of work he could not well prepare for; 
kinds of work for which, by virtue of native powers, acquired powers, eco- 
nomic resources, etc., he is now fitted; kinds of work to which, with proper 
education, he might become fitted. (Compare: expert diagnosis of oculist, 
physician, psychiatrist, with consequent prescriptions against or for certain 
kinds of action). Obviously, this form of guidance must be individual, and 
should be available as far as practicable: (a) when the individual is ready 
to take further education of vocational or pre-vocational nature; (&) when 
he is ready to seek employment; and (c) when he seeks to pass from juvenile 
or other earlier to later and higher stages of employment. 

PROBLEMS OF OFFERINGS 

I. Assuming the presence of an abundance of easily read books about voca- 
tions in the library of the junior high school, could best services be rendered 



6i2 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

under (a) by having a departmental teacher give two hours a week to lec- 
tures and conferences centering around reading? What part could be played 
by, visits to farms, factories, stores, etc. ? Would it be advisable to have 
recitations? If the school is large, would it be advantageous to have a woman 
teacher of the subject for girls, and a man for boys? Could classes for this 
purpose well be as large as one hundred ? Should pupils study anything here ? 
What? 

2. Under what conditions could a pupil be required to undergo examination 
under (&) ? Where not required, what motives for electing such examina- 
tion could be expected (specify probable circumstances, in: a college; high 
school, upper classes; with retarded pupils in grades). 

B. The need of vocational guidance (to individuals) of a systematized kind 
under specialist school or employment auspices (informal vocational guidance 
under home and other agencies has always been available) increases partly, 
if social efficiency is to be realized, in proportion as : 

a. The variety of occupations open to an individual increases. 

h. The requirements of many of these vocations become technical and dif- 
ficult. 

c. Vocations are carried on in places invisible and inaccessible to growing 
youths 

d. Apprenticeship, with its formal arrangements, selections, and responsi- 
bilities declines. 

PROBLEMS OF INDIVIDUAL NEED 

1. What are the occupations normally open and desirable in central North 
Dakota respectively to : a fifteen-year-old boy of good strength and manual 
ability and no strong intellectual interests; the same youth at twenty-one, 
assuming him to have worked meanwhile as a hired man at general farming; 
a girl at fifteen, of musical promise, poor parents, but girl and parents very 
ambitious; a farmer's daughter of good general scholastic ability, but poor 
health and great dislike of farm life; a boy of fifteen, of prosperous parents, 
with excellent health and mathematical abilities, very ambitious? Given a 
high school of one hundred pupils in Streeter, North Dakota, would you advise 
inclusion of vocational guidance among courses? What kinds? To what ex- 
pected ends? 

2. What are the occupations normally open and desirable in New York 
City to : the son of prosperous American parents, who has excellent ability 
in athletics, mathematics, and "society," is very ambitious, and promises to be 
of the "executive" type; the daughter of rich Jewish (recent immigrant) 
parents, artistic (plastic and graphic art) interests and some ability, poor schol- 
arship in formal subjects, not good English speech, excellent health; the 
daughter of poor parents, strong in body, but low in grade and backward in 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 613 

school work, and looking upon all work as a curse; the son of poor artisan 
parents, very keen mentally, eager for business success, but in poor health, and 
of irritable disposition? Given junior and senior high schools and evening 
schools in New York City, what would you recommend as to time and place 
of informative vocational guidance courses? Kinds of courses? Kinds and 
places of diagnostic work ? For what purposes ? 

3. Examine relative needs of vocational guidance in: rural sections of cen- 
tral Texas; rural areas of Georgia (for colored population); Worcester, 
Massachusetts; Stockton, California — giving separate consideration to: girls 
of low or average abilities in poor families; boys of exceptional specific abili- 
ties in poor families; and other realistic case situations. 

C. The need of systematized vocational guidance to society (for the sake 
of leadership, avoidance of discontent, general health, avoidance of useless 
sacrifices, etc.) becomes great in proportion as: 

a. Society develops great need for talented leadership or expert service. 
(Note means by which candidates in America are selected for West Point, 
for medical colleges, for scholarships, for specialized work under national, 
state, and municipal civil service, for promotion in business, and for certifica- 
tion as teachers.) 

h. Occupations develop to the point where very purposive training is requi- 
site, and where ill prepared individuals suffer greatly. (Note conditions now 
to be met by one who would "succeed" as farmer, stenographer, mine manager, 
hotel cook, public singer, traveling salesman, and promoter of oil-well-drilling 
operations.) 

c. Economic evolution creates conditions inimical to the health of all but 
specially fit or specially prepared individuals. (Note writings on "industrial 
diseases" and the pathological accompaniments of stone cutting, elementary- 
school teaching, mattress making, rag sorting, pottery manufacture, navigation, 
nursing, farming, steel working.) Consider separately for these workers: 
girls ; mature women ; boys ; mature men. 

d. Economic evolution creates conditions of work so complex that the worker 
believes himself exploited and prevented from shifting or advancing as he 
desires. (Note that under primitive conditions man worked largely against 
nature, whereas in advanced economic organization he seems to be working 
chiefly against, or in competition with, other human beings; that he needs 
for his contentment knowledge as to whether he is in right work, etc.) 

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL NEED 

I. Is it probable that the proportion of persons naturally endowed as 
geniuses (of various species), leaders, altruists (of exceptional influence), 
vagrants, subnormals, etc., is substantially the same everywhere — country 
and city, Massachusetts and North Carolina, peoples of Huguenot and of 



6i4 ■ EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

Italian ancestry? Under similar social stimulus, should we expect as many 
inventors from Georgia as from Connecticut, as many feminists from the 
farm as from the suburbs, as many morons from Denver as from Fall River? 
Should and could society do more than it now does to try to discover in youth 
potential promising poets, opera singers, military leaders, inventors, business 
executives, pugilists, baseball players, moving-picture artists, physicians, teach- 
ers, statesmen ? 

2. Historically, has it been true that "any one" could be farmer, country 
school teacher, home-maker. Congressman, salesman, storekeeper? Enumerate 
vocations now demanding workers who need only be "bright girls," sixteen 
years or more old. What are the vocations now open to more or less "broken" 
elderly women of no education? What are vocations now open to im- 
poverished "gentlewomen" ? Middle-aged farm hands ? City-raised boys of 
fifteen? Steel-factory workers of ten years' operative specialization? 

Could one of those classes easily become a sailor, general machinist, watch 
repairer, dressmaker, vaquero, chauffeur, stenographer, dentist, actor? What 
qualities do bright girls, eighteen to twenty-five, bring to rural school teaching 
that men twenty-five to forty who will work for the same money usually do 
not? A high-school principal declares that employers only require that a 
boy have "pep," and that a girl be "quiet." Interpret. 

At what age do men or women normally become : school principals ; mine 
foremen; policemen; locomotive engineers; college teachers; Congressmen; 
traveling salesmen; sailors; "full-responsibility" home-makers (through mar- 
riage); sea captains; business "managers"? What minimum general school- 
ing is expected (by employing authorities) to precede in each case? Voca- 
tional schooling? Experience in related vocations? What unrelated voca- 
tions may precede ? 

3. In a certain area granite stone cutting is the most accessible employment 
for muscular men of mechanical leanings. The tuberculosis rate is high 
in this industry. What problems arise for vocational diagnosticians? 

What evidence have you that the following are relatively unhealthful occu- 
pations : cotton textile work for girls fifteen to twenty ; business leadership 
for men forty to sixty; farm life for home-makers; bookkeeping for men 
thirty to sixty ; elementary teaching, women thirty to forty ; medicine for 
women ; hotel waitress service for women twenty-five to thirty-five ; stoker 
and firing service on steamers ; general work in dynamite factories ; coal min- 
ing; railway switching? What are your present prepossessions as to these 
and twenty other vocations to be named by you ? Do you consider these 
facts as to the vocational healthfulness of such callings important in guidance? 
How can sound generalizations be procured? 

4. Why do so fewx)f the following leave their adverse home surroundings: 
Labrador fishermen; Bedouin Arabs; French peasantry; Central African ne- 
groes ? Why do the following migrate : Irish peasantry ; Russian Jews ; moun- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 615 

tain whites of the Appalachians; Japanese; gypsies? Do the same peoples 
work generation after generation in American coal mines? Cotton mills? 
Farms? Teaching professions? Why? In which of the following vocations 
do your prepossessions suggest that workers are most exploited or disad- 
vantaged by "man's contrivance" : coal mines ; ten-cent stores ; hospital nurs- 
ing; pioneer farming; elementary-school teaching; college teaching; laundry 
work ; waiting service in large hotels ; navy ; tropical fruit growing ; matri- 
mony and home-making (among the poor) ; market gardening. Compare 
the following vocations as to opportunities for intimate relations between em- 
ployers and employees ; law offices ; men's hat factories ; cartridge factories ; 
small grocery stores. What relative scope do each of these vocations give 
for exercise of the "creative impulse" (which first define) : small pioneer 
farming ; watch-factory operative ; department-store clerk ; coal-miner ; loco- 
motive fireman; farm home-maker (Nebraska); orange-grower? Which of 
the following vocations possess for you (or young persons known to you) the 
deepest halo of general attractiveness : candy-store clerk ; sea captain ; bedside 
nurse; high-school teacher; diamond-cutter; gold-miner (on small scale); 
raisin-grower (California); fur-trapper? Does distance (and what else) lend 
enchantment to the view ? 

Give examples where real or apparent vocational "misfitting" is now 
readily possible, giving sources of your impressions. 

D. Vocational opportunities are at any given time limited by: 

a. Social demands for particular service; 

b. Accessibility of openings to potential workers ; 

c. Possession of capital and tools; 

d. And by numerous minor factors. 

PROBLEMS OF OPPORTUNITIES 

1. Estimate on basis of census figures probable annual replacements needed 
in the United States in the following fields of service : physicians ; high-school 
teachers; farmers; opera singers; elementary-school teachers; building car- 
penters ; diamond-cutters ; novelists ; stenographers ; automobile-factory opera- 
tives; coal-miners; domestic servants. 

2. What will probably be openings (a) within California and (&) outside 
of that state, cattsed by annual replacements of : lawyers ; dentists ; textile- 
mill operatives ; locomotive engineers ; oil-well drillers ; bank clerks ; home- 
makers; firearm mechanics; teachers of music? 

3. Out of one hundred thousand girls in the fifth grades of certain village 
schools in Iowa, what proportion will or can normally find vocational openings 
as: physicians, thirty to fifty; home-makers, twenty to sixty; elementary-school 
teachers, eighteen to twenty-four; same, twenty-five to sixty; domestic serv- 
ants, sixteen to twenty-two; same, twenty-three to sixty; opera singers; civil 



6i6 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

service research specialists; farm operators; newspaper editors; dentists; store 
(indoor) clerks or saleswomen; barbers; saleswomen at salaries upward of 
three thousand dollars? 

4. Out of one thousand girls graduating from general courses in high schools 
of suburbs of Chicago, what numbers could and should find vocations as : 
trained nurses; counter saleswomen; "ladies of leisure"; lawyers; home- 
makers, twenty-five to sixty ; professional actresses ; domestic servants ; farm 
laborers; railway operatives; shoe-factory operatives? 

5. Of one thousand boys finishing first year only of four-year high school, 
what proportion, in a city like New Orleans, are likely to become : agricultural 
field hands; physicians; high-school teachers; skilled oil-well workers; farm 
owners ; trained nurses ; hotel cooks ; stenographers, thirty to sixty ? 

What changes of proportions would you predict for one thousand high- 
school graduates, same environment? 

6. In a certain reform school in a New England manufacturing state are 
four hundred boys aged thirteen to seventeen. Nearly all are retarded and 
more or less corrupted. Some are keen and lawless, many plodding and 
dull. Assuming possibilities of twelve hundred hours' good vocational train- 
ing in schools or corresponding part-time school and apprenticeship, what voca- 
tions would seem most promising for them? 

7. In a certain North Mississippi Valley state is a school for persons blind 
from early childhood. The school is endowed to give from twelve to twenty- 
foiir hundred hours' specific vocational training from ages sixteen to twenty. 
Take its problems as your own : are there vocations that prefer a blind to 
a seeing person of equal native and acquired abilities? What are vocations 
that would probably prefer a blind to a seeing person, otherwise equal, at 
20 per cent, less wages? Is it expedient to train blind boys of good ability 
to be : dentists, high-school teachers of mathematics, piano tuners, chauffeurs, 
cooks, farm operators ? Should the girls try to become : nurses, primary- 
school teachers, typists (without stenography), home-makers? What is now 
known about vocations for the blind of each sex, where competition with 
seeing of equal ability and perhaps less training is practicable? 

8. To what extent should possible mobility of workers figure in vocational 
guidance? Compare the relative mobility (ability to leave home and travel 
to distant places) of following wotkers : girls fifteen to twenty, of poor 
parents, living in city, and of average "manual worker" abilities; girls, 
twenty to twenty-four, college graduates; boys, farm reared, suited to general 
"manual work," poor parents; young men of excellent ability, fairly pros- 
perous families, trained for professions; skilled machinist with family of 
five children, active member of a church of small denomination; woman 
secretary aged forty-five, with lifelong associations in home place. 

9. Under what conditions as to local openings, native abilities, sex, age, 
and possibilities of vocational training would good guidance advise : girls 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 617 

from prosperous Minnesota farms to seek musical or theatrical vocations in 
New York; farm boys of mechanical bent to become city mechanics; boys 
of large Eastern cities to become farmers; girls of village environment, of 
excellent abilities and general college education, and genuine interest in having 
families of their own, to become lawyers or doctors; stenographers from 
Montana to seek Washington Civil Service posts; native American Southern 
negroes to seek barbering in New York? 

10. What are now the various roads by which boys become "owning" 
farmers, with land and equipment worth from ten to thirty thousand dollars? 
A Boston boy of eighteen, physically hardy and mentally able, but owning 
no capital, and with no prospects of inheritance, is keenly desirous of be- 
coming an orchardist; what would you tell him? A country boy of sixteen, 
excellent ability, but no actual or prospective capital, greatly desires to become 
a merchant in a large city; advise him. A city girl of much enterprise, good 
education, and prosperous parents, but no capital of her own, is zealous to 
become a farmer; advise her. 

What capital is now normally required, after completion of vocational edu- 
cation, to equip necessary offices and to tide over "acquaintanceship" period 
for one who would be an independent : dentist ; plumber ; shoe repairer ; 
doctor; lawyer; grocer; pharmacist? 

11. Under what circumstances would you advise: a college girl of excellent 
ability, in her third year of college, to study architecture; a high-school boy 
of bookish interests and moderate ability to become a country school teacher; 
a high-school girl to seek a vocation that would not interfere with her matri- 
monial chances? 

Would you advise : A Massachusetts negro to enter a normal school in 
that state? A bright negress in a Rochester high school to prepare in stenog- 
raphy? A girl of native American stock to seek a career in domestic serv- 
ice? A boy to follow stenography as a life career? A Russian Jewess of 
exceptional ability, but pronounced racial characteristics, to seek a high-school 
teaching position in Georgia, or Texas, or northern New York? A bright 
hunchbacked girl to seek to become a primary-school teacher, a trained nurse, 
a salesgirl, or a proof-reader ? 

Certain vocations are good for juveniles, but poor for adults. What would 
you advise workers as to "upgrading" or advancement? Discuss in this 
connection: textile operative work; grade teaching; "ten-cent store" sales- 
manship; switchboard operating; cigarette making; telegraph messenger 
service. 

E. Problems of vocational guidance arise largely from defective sociologi- 
cal and psychological knowledge. Among current problems are these : 

a. Are certain vocations more "overcrowded" than others? By what 
standards? For what reasons? 

b. What is the full social significance of highly specialized vocations, and 



6i8 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

what should be expected to be the normal progress and stay of workers in 
them? 

c. Under what circumstances, and to what extent, can or should vocational 
guidance "blacklist" undesirable or antisocial vocations ? 

d. What are the possibilities of "dual," "alternate," "major" and "minor," 
and "dull season" vocations? 



MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS 

I. At the present time do you think that stenography is more "overcrowded" 
than domestic service? Medicine than electrical engineering? General fac- 
tory work for girls than farming ? Elementary-school teaching than traveling 
salesmanship? What, as you see it, are the least, and what the most, over- 
crowded fields now for : "unskilled" men workers, strong and mature ? Aver- 
age young girls of sixteen in New York, with one year of high-school educa- 
tion? Strong high-school boy graduates able to give five or six years to 
professional education ? What is the real meaning of : "There is always room 
at the top" ? 

In what vocations does alleged overcrowding seem the result of indetermi- 
nate standards, or greatly variable standards under the same vocational name ? 
Illustrate from farming (in days of public land settlement), public office hold- 
ing, stenography, domestic service, brokerage, indoor salesmanship. When an 
employer asks, "What can you do?" and the young applicant replies, "Any- 
thing," what does he mean, usually? 

What are some vocations now imperfectly developed which you think likely 
to develop greatly during the next few years ? Would you advise persons of 
apparently suitable talent to try to become : moving-picture actors, brewers, 
orange growers, advertising illustrators, bond salesmen, high-school teachers ? 

What are now the most "popular" vocations with : college women ; men 
graduates of Harvard and Yale; boys of exceptional mechanical ability? 

2. Analyze processes of subdivision of labor found in producing : shoes ; 
cotton cloth; knitted goods; watches; cartridges; automobiles; packed fruits; 
pamphlets ; newspapers ; telephony ; railway transportation ; ready-made cloth- 
ing; fountain pens; tableware; coal; steel rails; staple furniture; sugar (beet) ; 
sugar (cane); raw rubber; men's hat,s. 

Within any one of the foregoing fields, give varieties of workers, producers, 
supervisors, etc., grades (as expressed in compensation), and estimated number 
in each. What facts can you discover as to relative maturity of workers in 
each grade ? Under what kinds of vocational education could workers of 
sufficient maturity be advanced to higher grades? 

What are your chief prepossessions against specialized work on the score 
of physical healthf ulness ? Psychological healthf ulness ? Social healthful- 
ness? Contrast ('in order to show effects of specialization) workers from 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE . 619 

farming, home-making, retail shoe clerking, janitor service, peddling, and 
sheepherding, with workers of similar age, sex, and income from furniture 
factories, steamer navigation, locomotive manufacture, book manufacture, and 
street-car driving. 

Define forms of leadership and highly paid special service now found in: 
street-car operation; department stores; telegraphy; cloak manufacture; and 
explosives manufacture. To what extent, and under what circumstances, 
are these "advanced from the ranks" ? Is it presumably economical for 
a street-railway system to pay its president sixty-five thousand dollars a 
year? 

3. What are certain antisocial vocations besides burglary and other feloni- 
ous pursuits ? What place do you give to : cigarette making ; tobacco farm- 
ing; firearms manufacturing; "patent medicine" manufacture; military train- 
ing; oil mining; stock brokerage; advertising illustration; opera singing; 
diamond cutting? Which of these vocations do you regard as of greatest 
relative service to society: rural school teaching, fruit farming, jewelry mak- 
ing, commission merchant service, novel writing, dentistry, moving-picture 
operating, naval service ? How would or should recommendations of voca- 
tional guides be affected by valuations here ? 

Should vocational guidance urge : boys to "stay on the farm" ? Girls to 
strive decently toward matrimony? Young workers to get into vocations 
having no "bosses" ? All persons to get "civil service" government places ? 
Girls and women to get into fields now largely occupied by men? Men to 
take indoor salesmanship ? Men to take up elementary-school teaching ? 

4. Some vocations, and especially those of a primitive type, are composite 
— e.g., general farming, home-making, small retailing, general handiwork, do- 
mestic service, machine repairing. Many others tend toward simplification 
and specialization. The following special problems arise : 

a. Is it desirable and expedient that a specialized operative, working with 
one type of machine, should be able to transfer to others, in case inventions 
or shifts diminish importance of his specialty? 

h. Is it desirable and expedient that workers in "seasonal" industries qualify 
to carry on others in "off" seasons (elementary-school teachers often wait on 
table in summers; harvest hands take up railroad or lumbering work in 
winter, etc.) ? 

c. Where factory operatives have an eight-hour day (and, in growing sea- 
son, a forty-four-hour week), are gardening, poultry raising, etc., desirable 
and practicable minor vocations? 

d. Married women, under some circumstances, claim to find home-making 
duties insufficient to fill their time. Can and should they seek opportunities 
for wage-earning in teaching, farm labor, hotel service, factory work, writing, 
music? Discuss for poor economic levels (negress field workers), highest 
economic levels, and others. 



620 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

F. The case method of study is nov>^ a profitable means of opening up the 
actual problems in this largely unexplored field. As fast as practicable, persons 
with professional aims here should assemble realistic cases. The following 
hypothetical types of cases are submitted as illustrative : 

Case A (individual). A boy in Bridgeport, Connecticut, has reached six- 
teen years of age and just graduated from the elementary school. His father 
is a janitor, American born, his mother Irish born and of meager education. 
Neither desires to support the boy longer in school. (There are four smaller 
children in the family.) The boy has lost interest in general schooling (hav- 
ing been two years retarded) and is eager to earn money. Wants to be an 
electrical engineer, editor, or leading business man. Was low grade in school 
studies, except vocal music, in which he has moderate talent. Bridgeport is 
chiefly a machine-shop city, with usual commercial openings. It has good day 
trade school (two years' course), besides evening classes for persons employed 
in the shops. 

This boy desires advice as to next ten years. What further facts do you 
need to know regarding him? What would you now advise him to do? 

Assume that he enters a gun factory as machine operative, and at nineteen 
is earning thirty dollars a week, but is restless and wants promotion, or a 
new type of work. What facts would you need to know and what advice 
could you now give? 

Case B (individual). In Albany, New York, a girl (Ellen) of seventeen 
has just graduated from the classical high school. Her parents are poor Irish 
people with six children, all slow but Ellen, whom they have favored, at much 
sacrifice, because of her intellectual brilliancy. Earlier she was eager to teach, 
but her schoolmates have persuaded her that teaching is cheap and poor 
work and gives no chance to meet men. Ellen is especially strong in English, 
but poor in mathematics and music. Her parents can not afford to send her 
to college. Her mother is convinced that Ellen will marry by the time she 
is twenty. There is a large commercial department in the local high school, 
but no other opportunities for vocational training. The girl is in fair health, 
but inclined to nervousness. She may have to help toward the education of 
her younger brothers and sisters. 

Would you care to give this girl vocational tests? Make recommendations 
looking to the (a) next two years; and (&) the next five years, on assumption 
she will not marry. 

Case C (school). The junior high school of N., in Massachusetts, has 
twelve hundred seventh- and eighth-grade pupils, besides two hundred re- 
tarded boys and girls over twelve and under sixteen. The community is 
mostly suburban. About four hundred of the pupils come from homes that 
will not oppose their leaving school as soon as the law allows ; and about 
eight hundred from families very ambitious to have their children finish high 
school. The school offers generous and flexible programs of manual training 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 621 

and household arts, a slight amount of gardening, and no commercial work. 
All pupils leaving school after fourteen must get working papers, involving a 
physical examination, and capable of involving such other examinations as 
may be desired. 

The school authorities have been convinced that vocational guidance is de- 
sirable, and have appropriated twenty-six hundred dollars annually for this 
purpose (but with stipulation that not more than two thousand dollars shall 
be spent on salaries). But they have as yet no program, and have asked the 
superintendent to make recommendations. He asks you to submit yours. 
Especially does he want to know: (a) Should one full-time guidance teacher 
be "employed, or a man for the boys and a woman for the girls? (&) Should 
proposed work be chiefly informative and inspirational, or diagnostic and 
placement? (c) Should any of it be obligatory on (i) all pupils, or (2) 
pupils applying for working papers, or (3) should it be elective? (d) Should 
time be given it in the regular schedules of studies? Where? How much? 
For whom? (e) Is it desirable that the guidance teacher or teachers should 
influence aims or other studies? (/) What should be the specific character of 
offerings (consider regular instruction, guided readings, individual advising, 
class visits to mills, lectures by teachers, etc.) ? 

Case D (school). In a prosperous farming (and related commercial) area 
in eastern Kansas is a high school of two hundred pupils. The principal has 
been given six hundred dolldrs yearly to provide for vocational guidance. 
Nearly half the pupils will graduate, and half of these will go to normal 
schools and agricultural colleges. Many of the boys want to follow farming, 
but all the girls aspire to urban work and permanent residence. Give this 
principal advice as to how to proceed. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Brewer, John. The Vocational Guidance Movement (Ch. i, The Problem 

of Vocational Guidance). 
Bloomfield, M. Readings in Vocation Guidance. 
Bloomfield, M. Vocational Guidance of Youth. 
Chapman, J. C. Trade Tests (Sect. 6, The Place of the Trade Test in 

Industry). 
HoLLiNGWORTH, H. L. Vocational Psychology. 
Smith, W. R. Introduction to Educational Sociology (Ch. 13, Vocation 

Guidance as a Socialized School Function). 
Weaver, E. W. Profitable Vocations for Boys, 
Weaver, E. W. Profitable Vocations for Girls. 



CHAPTER XLVII 
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

EVERY adult has had a wide range of contacts with vocations -and 
vocational education. He and his close associates have often specu- 
lated as to the kinds of work he was fitted for. He has sometimes desired 
to get into kinds of work for which, manifestly, he had no preparation. 
Probably relatives or circumstances have forced him to do work for which 
he had much distaste. He has painfully learned that he was "born short'' 
as far as certain kinds of attractive work are concerned. 

Then, too, he has been a utilizer of the good or bad work of others — 
teachers, cooks, dentists, shoe repairers, watchmakers, street-car motor- 
men, mail clerks, policemen, tailors, ministers. Some of these were well 
trained and competent workers, some were charlatans, and some were of 
good intentions but incompetent. Each adult has been the victim of poor 
workers, and has probably victimized others. Out of your experience, 
answer some of these questions : 

1. What are some vocations which you have practised? 

2. What are some vocations practised by others which you have observed 
closely ? 

3. Name the vocation, or vocations, for which the following give fairly 
complete vocational education: 

a. West Point Military Academy ; b. a state agricultural college ; c. the 
Commercial Department of a large city high school; d. a normal school 
(known to you) ; e. a medical college; /. a pre-vocational junior high school; 
g. a trade school known to you; h. the Home Economics Department of a 
large high school. 

4. Do you think it desirable and practicable to establish vocational schools 
at public expense and under public conttol for the following vocations : 

a. Dentistry; b. stenography; c. coal-mining operative work; d. locomotive 
firing; e. custom tailoring; /. barbering; g. orange growing; h. home-making; 
i. shoe-factory operative specialty; /. deep-sea fishing; k. domestic service; 
I. high-school teaching of French; m. kitchenware salesmanship in department 
store ? 

5. As far as you can surmise, what are the (i) prevailing earliest years 
at which the following vocations are begun and (2) what vocational pursuits 
usually precede them: 

622 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 623 



a. Hotel waitress; h. "owning" general farmer; c. elementary-school teach- 
ing: d. weaving, textile factory; e. machine-shop foreman; /. bank cashier; 
g. "full-responsibility" home-maker; h. journeyman bricklayer? 

6. Estimate the number of days, of eight hours each, beginning at an age 
to be specified by you, that a good vocational school would probably require 
to give basic vocational education to "full earning capacity" in the following 
vocations : 

a. Lawyer; h. poultry farmer; c. office file clerk (girl); d. hotel cook; e. 
home-maker (twenty-five hundred dollars income); /. grocery-store clerk; 
g. surgeon; h. high-school teacher of mathematics and physics; i. cotton 
spinner ; /. ready-made clothing operative specialty ; k. telegraph messenger 
boy; I. auto^truck chauffeur; m. village house carpenter. 

7. What minimum general education do you regard as essential for entry 
upon vocational education for the following vocations : 

a. Physician; b. barber; c. foundryman; d. cotton grower; e. street-car 
motorman ; /. stenographer ; g. certified accountant ; h. kindergarten teacher ; 
i. railway switchman ; /. copper-mine operative ; k. automobile repairman ; 
I. children's nurse ; m. locomotive engineer ; n. home-maker ; 0. cotton-goods 
factory superintendent. 

8. Designate ten vocations that seem capable of being taught in conjunction 
with general high-school studies, housing, equipment, etc. 

9. Designate ten vocations that would probably require conditions (location 
of schools, admission and standards, equipment, etc.) very unlike conditions 
usual to high schools. 

ID. Name ten vocations for which you would deem it desirable to train 
young men, age eighteen, of C — intelligence (on scale of A, very superior; 
B, superior; C+, high average; C, average; C — , low average; D, inferior; 
E, very inferior) of less than fifth-grade education, but of strong, healthy 
bodies. 

11. Same, but of weak muscular powers. 

12. Same, young women, of C — intelligence and poor physique. 



EVOLUTIONARY PHASES 

"The current movement for vocational education" is still too imma- 
ture to possess a technical literature. Only faint traces of that movement 
can be described prior to 1906, when the "National Society for the Promo- 
tion of Industrial Education" was formed. Like all other social move- 
ments in a democracy, that for the furtherance of vocational education 
has gone far without comprehensive formulation of its essential objectives. 
In the fundamental sociological sense, the world has always had vocational 
education. All of the sixty-odd million adult workers found to-day in 



624 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

the United States have been vocationally trained and instructed. Five or 
six per cent. — including nearly all lawyers, doctors, and agricultural ex- 
perts, as well as some elementary-school teachers and many stenographers 
— were educated for their vocations in special vocational schools. An- 
other 5 to 6 per cent, were vocationally prepared through definitely organ- 
ized apprenticeship training— the most direct and purposive vocational 
education that society has heretofore evolved. 

But nearly 90 per cent, of all the adult workers of America have been 
the beneficiaries, — in many cases it would be more accurate to say the 
victims, — not of school or of apprenticeship vocational education, but of 
what it is technically correct to designate as "pick-up" — training and in- 
struction. Nearly all farmers, sailors, miners, factory operatives, sales- 
people, and home-makers have, indeed, achieved substantial proficiency in 
their respective callings. But, vocationally speaking, they are largely self- 
made. They have acquired skills, technique, appreciations, attitudes, and 
ideals "on the job" — sometimes under direction of a parent, more fre- 
quently under a foreman bent on "production," and not infrequently in 
the blind isolation of unassisted "trial and error." Pick-up vocational edu- 
cation is like the arctic regions — it selects, and often greatly rewards, the 
naturally superior. But it is a wasteful and cruel process for all those 
of average or less than average natural endowment. It disheartens and 
wastes and maims and breaks men and women by hundreds of thousands 
each year. It is the chief source of ghastly labor "turnovers," the parent 
of the I. W. W. spirit. It is as wasteful and ineffective, in its way, as 
was pick-up education toward literacy in days before public schools came 
into being. 

In stark simplicity, the current movement represents a nation-wide 
desire and attempt to substitute for pick-up methods of vocational train- 
ing — and for apprenticeship, too, where that has broken down — the pur- 
posive methods of special vocational schools. These are expected to be, 
and can be made, as effective for at least several hundred distinctive voca- 
tions now followed by the rank and file of workers as professional voca- 
tional schools are for the vocational elite. 

SOURCES OF INTEREST IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

What are the chief sources of the great strength of the still very new 
movement for publicly supported and publicly controlled vocational educa- 
ejon through schools for the thousands of vocations now found? There 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 625 

are several such sources. The first is found in contemporary interests 
and beliefs in conservation — the conservation of human powers, human 
courage, human well-being and happiness. There can be no permanent 
well-being or happiness for men or women that does not rest on founda- 
tions of assured abilities to produce economic goods. But such abilities 
can never be fully and economically realized through pick-up vocational 
education; and even apprenticeship is a means of apparently dwindling 
effectiveness. 

The second source is in the spirit of democracy. Schools of general 
education have in several essential respects become reasonably democratic 
in America; but our system of school vocational education is still very 
aristocratic. New demands involve no impairing of professional schools, 
but only that something of a fair chance shall be given also to those who 
can not reach the higher vocations. 

A third source is found in the vocational "closed doors" created, quite 
generally with no evil design, by modern economic conditions. Modern 
apprenticeship is none too generous in its efforts to open the doors of 
advancement to aspiring workers ; but such meager opportunities as it 
gives are as freedom to slavery when contrasted with those available 
through most forms of pick-up vocational education. The really tightly 
closed doors of advancement in modern productive work are found in 
the highly subdivided "operative" fields of modern manufacture, mining, 
and transport. The situation has been slightly relieved through public 
provision of facilities for extension vocational education in the fields of 
farming, home-making, and commerce. But no theory of vocational edu- 
cation is at all adequate to contemporary social needs which does not 
recognize that in numberless situations specific and purposive full-time 
vocational education through schools is more urgently needed by men and 
women from twenty to thirty years of age than by juvenile wage-workers 
from fifteen to twenty years of age. Our urban boys and girls can get 
work readily enough without direct vocational training, notwithstanding 
that in the great majority of cases three to six months' direct full-time 
training would often be of great value to them. 

But their juvenile earnings, ample enough for their needs during their 
home-staying^ unmarried years, will prove far from sufficient as they take 
on larger responsibilities. The real vocational crisis for hundreds of 
thousands of our fellow citizens comes when, somewhere between 
eighteen and thirty years of age, they seek to "step up" from juvenile 
vocations to those appropriate to men and women. Here is where th^K' 



626 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

encounter "closed doors" — closed through no evil intent, but simply be- 
cause of the same kind of social stupidity that tolerates governmental 
inefficiency and wars. 

EXPERIMENTAL BEGINNINGS 

The contemporary "movement" for vocational education is, therefore, 
in essence a gigantic social aspiration and effort to substitute a purposive 
and direct form of education for a blind and indirect form. No competent 
student of the several forms of purposive education essential to the 
security of a democracy expected to embody the ideals of twentieth-cen- 
tury social economy now doubts that, given the opportunity, America 
will proceed steadily to evolve special vocational schools for the several 
thousand distinctive vocations through which our highly organized 
economic production is now achieved. Few competent students doubt 
that these schools, experimentally attempted under private or philanthropic 
effort at first, will eventually be evolved under public support and control 
no less extensively than are now high schools of general or liberal educa- 
tion. 

In the meantime, and of course quite consistently with usual practice in 
a democracy when new aspirations are being evolved and experiments in 
new social policies are being experimented with, numberless faddish and 
fraudulent imitations are promoted. Medicine, theology, agriculture, and 
political organization have never been able, even after years of develop- 
ment, quite to shake ofif their parasites. Even genuine college education 
has its numberless deceptive imitations, its faddish shams. Small wonder, 
then, that the movement for sound vocational education, which already 
makes the popular appeal indicated by the unanimous vote of Congress 
for the "Smith-Hughes" Act, should evoke all sorts of imitations, sub- 
stitutes, and shams. These have not been confined to money-making or 
self-advertising ventures. Thousands of high schools of general or liberal 
education have sought to "vocationali^e" their offerings — observant, per- 
haps, of the numerous liberal arts colleges which in recent years have 
sought, by modifying old courses or constructing new bookish ones, to 
give a so-called "vocational trend" to their work. 

The manual arts courses of junior and senior schools have especially 
tempted exploitation of popular credulity. These obtained their original 
public support, indeed, in the somewhat vague expectation that they would 
serve the ends of "practical" education. Could they not still be made into 
something looking sufficiently "like" vocational education to "hold pupils 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 627 

longer" in school? Even legislatures decreed that "agriculture" should be 
taught in all pubhc shools — high and low ! "Rural life" high schools were 
projected in which "vocational agriculture" was supposed to "motivate" 
the general studies. The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary 
Education, speaking, apparently, with the approval of the National Edu- 
cation Association, recommended in effect a large "vocationalizing" of all 
high schools as a means of "relating education to life." 

All these obscure and often misleading proposals accomplish nothing 
toward the ends of genuine vocational education. But they constitute a 
serious and hurtful disservice to the general or liberal education for which 
the high school was primarily established and should be supported. These 
ill-timed efforts to transform our secondary schools of general education 
serve to obscure the urgent need of rendering that education more truly 
functional and efficient — partly as respects its methods, but very much 
more as respects its objectives. It is high time for educators generally to 
join in denouncing the corrupting influences of sham vocational education. 
They can greatly help all education if they particularly insist that public 
support and approval be no longer conferred upon fads and imitations. 

GENUINE vs. SHAM VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

Genuine vocational education — what are some of its characteristics? 
These can best be discovered through study of the aims, methods, and 
administration of those existing schools which have long been approved 
by enlightened opinion as giving purposive and fairly effective vocational 
education. Representative of these are : the better medical colleges ; well 
developed normal schools; certain efficient schools or departments of 
stenography and typewriting, some under private direction, and a few 
located in large urban high schools ; the United States War Academies at 
Annapolis and West Point; the more widely known schools of engineer- 
ing; a few endowed, and a very few public trade schools of dressmaking, 
machine-shop practice, automobile repair, sign painting, and electric wir- 
ing; schools of pharmacy, dentistry, and commercial (advertising) art; 
and certain private schools of telephone switchboard operation, tractor 
driving, and printing. 

Certain outstanding qualities characterize these schools. First, each is 
organized with unmistakable reference to the needs of one, or a very 
few closely related, vocations. Second, each integrates into its curriculum 
large amounts of practical work of a productive character, notwithstand- 
ing that, in several of the vocations toward which they train, mastery of 



628 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

technical knowledge plays a very much more important role than it does 
in vocations of less than professional level. (And, incidentally, it should 
be noted that all progressive normal, engineering, medical, and steno- 
graphic schools are yearly increasing the proportions of time given to 
training through practical participation in productive work.) Third, these 
vocational schools may be affiliated with others (as, for example, in a 
university or secondary-school system), but they are not merged or 
blended with others as respects courses and faculties. Fourth, each de- 
velops and transmits to its students a set of social ideals, including pro- 
fessional ethics, appropriate to the vocation. Fifth, each, according to 
its field of opportunities, establishes many connections with the external 
fields of employment into which its graduates go — and in recent years 
these are being scientifically studied through intensive "follow-up" in- 
quiries. Sixth, while most of these schools concern themselves primarily 
with "basic" or "full-time" vocational education, they recognize the pos- 
sibilities of extension vocational education, and clearly differentiate the 
two types in methods and in administration. 

It need hardly be said, of course, that genuine vocational education 
rarely finds it necessary to exploit public credulity, to employ' vague and 
mystical terms in explaining its objectives, or to cater to the desires 
of considerable numbers* of students who will probably not follow the 
vocations for which this expensive training is given. 

It is also obvious that the true vocational school requires the full work- 
ing time and energies of its students. Professional schools rarely make 
a showing in intercollege athletics. Pupils in lower vocational schools 
can not "get by" on a five-hour day, a five-day week, or a forty-week 
year — though not a few trade schools are still attempting to do so in their 
desire to imitate schools of general education. 

"Sham" vocational education in public or endowed schools — what are 
its usual characteristics? 

First, it is lacking in clearly formulated vocational objectives stated in 
terms of the various forms of vocational proficiency recognized by em- 
ployees and employers. It masquerades its objectives behind vague and 
plausible phrases such as "woodworking," "business English," "shop 
mathematics," "principles of agriculture," "salesmanship," and "indus- 
trial history," in spite of the fact that these terms, on definite analysis, 
exhibit no consistent relations to particular vocations as pursued under 
contemporary conditions. Then, too, much use is made of highly gen- 
eralized formulations of such objectives as "pre-vocational training," 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 629 

"pre-apprenticeship education," "vocation testing," "industrial intel- 
ligence," and the like. 

Second, most forms of sham vocational education are suffered — gladly, 
it would often appear — to play minor roles in the curricula required or 
advised for pupils. The "regular" school subjects monopolize the best 
part of the student's time and energy. In many secondary-school com- 
mercial departments, college preparatory mathematics, a foreign language, 
and much academic English are required to the end that the student may 
have a "high-school education," as well as what is alleged to be vocational 
training. The home economics courses playing minor roles in many high- 
school curricula are a travesty on honest training toward home-making 
proficiency. Technical high schools, once liberally supported by voters and 
parents in the belief that they would function as vocational schools, have 
tended steadily to become college preparatory schools — a worthy enough 
object, if honestly stated to the public. So-called "agricultural high 
schools" are indignant if their students can not offer all of their courses 
for credit toward admission to higher institutions. 

Third, they have as yet developed no adequate connections with fields 
of employment. Graduation requirements are not standardized in terms 
of "market" demands — and yet, nearly 100 per cent, of all workers under 
thirty years of age in the non-professional vocations must serve as "em- 
ployees" in some capacity. There are still to be found alleged vocational 
schools of printing whose graduates must enter apprenticeship at the 
same level as boys who have never seen a font of type or a printing press. 

RELATIONS TO GENERAL EDUCATION 

In most states existing legislation permits children after fourteen years 
of age to enter upon full-time vocational employment. We can readily 
imagine a vocational school with very specific aims and intensely "narrow" 
methods; but can we imagine such school education as being "narrower" 
than 'that pick-up training now given to juvenile workers in their industrial 
and commercial pursuits? The best that we can do to-day, in fairness 
to all our people, — the prosperous and unprosperous, the able-minded and 
the frail-minded, — is to require that the entire time of compulsory full- 
time school attendance shall be devoted to the ends of general or liberal 
education. 

The elements of sound public policy in this respect have been clearly 
reflected in all that state and national legislation which provides financial 



630 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

aid for the encouragement and support of vocational education. In no 
case did such legislation, when enacted, permit the financial aid provided 
by the state to be given toward the support of any form of vocational 
training of those young people who had not previously reached the age 
and educational attainment which made them legally free to quit school 
altogether. Young people under these laws were entitled to enter voca- 
tional schools only when they had become equally eligible to work an 
eight-hour day for wages' in factory, store, or elsewhere. 

Many social economists and some educators believe that the time is not 
far distant when no one under nineteen, or at least eighteen, years of age 
will be obliged to work full time for wages. Under these conditions it 
would, possibly, be sound policy to require by law that the years from 
twelve to eighteen should be devoted, as are now the years from six to 
fourteen, exclusively to general or liberal education of the scope and kind 
best suited to the learner's powers and probable future opportunities and 
responsibilities. At the close" of this period devoted wholly to general 
education, there could be provided by state and nation in hundreds, per- 
haps eventually in thousands, of specific varieties, rigorous vocational 
courses ranging in length from four months to four years, according to 
the complexity and difficulty of the vocation and the needs of learners. 

Under present economic conditions, hardly half the boys and girls of the 
usual urban or rural district can afiford the expense of remaining in a 
full-time school up to sixteen years of age. Probably not more than one 
fourth could afford to complete a full high-school course. But economic 
conditions may continue to improve for Americans during the next 
hundred years, as they steadily improved during the century since 1820. 
If so, we can readily anticipate a time when the state can, without impos- 
ing undue hardship, require all parents to keep their children in full-time 
schools up to eighteen, or, if a minimum of a year for vocational educa- 
tion be added, up to nineteen years of age. The alternative, obviously, is 
that the state should grant financial aid to those learners, and to their 
dependents, who can not bear the entire burden alone. Such a policy Would 
involve an advance in state socialism so great as to be outside the realm 
of practical political discussion, at least for the present. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Abbott, Edith. Women in Industry (Ch. 12, The Problem- of Women's 

Wages). 
Cadbury, E. Women's Work and Wages (Part II, Women Workers). 



VOCATIONAL EDUCATION— GENERAL 631 

Cleveland Survey (nine small volumes, dealing with several phases of 
vocational education) (Pub. by Russell Sage Foundation, N. Y.). 

DuNLOP^ O. J. English Apprenticeship' (Ch. 6 to 14). 

Hall, G. S. Youth (Ch. 3, Industrial Education). 

Lapp, J. A. Learning to Earn (Ch. 4, Industry and Educational Needs). 

Laselle, M. a. and Wiley, K. E. Vocations for Girls (Ch. 17, Statistics 
of Vocations for Girls). 

Slosson, E. E. Creative Chemistry. 

Snedden, D. Sociological Determination of Objectives of Education 
(Ch. 13, The Social Objectives of Vocational Education). 

Thomas, W. J. Sex and Society (Ch. 4, Sex and Primitive Industry). 



CHAPTER XLVIII 
AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

' INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE farming vocations are of many kinds. We all know of men who 
make their living chiefly through dairying. Others specialize in some 
form of market gardening or fruit growing. There are still large sections 
of the United States and Canada where little besides wheat is raised for 
sale. For many years the chief export crop of the Southern states was 
cotton. In the Rocky Mountain area are many gigantic cattle and sheep 
"ranches." 

Every boy raised on a farm can become, by imitation, a farmer — of a 
kind. Once, when free land was abundant, it was generally assumed that 
if a man could ''make a living" in no other way he could "take up" a 
quarter section of land and "farm" it. The first pioneer settlers across 
North America lived for the first few years of their settlement largely by 
hunting and trapping. Then they tended live stock — cattle and hogs for 
food, sheep for an easily carried salable product, and horses for transport. 
Next, land was cleared to raise hay, vegetables, and some grain. When 
railways came, or when rivers were not too far away, grain, tobacco, 
cotton, meat, and fruit were produced for distant markets. 

But by this time farming has ceased to be a simple vocation. When 
free acres can no longer be had, when the land and equipment of a 
medium-sized farm come to be worth from five to fifty thousand dollars, 
only men of superior industry and managerial powers can hope to earn 
taxes, interest, and reasonable wages on their investments of time, labor, 
and capital. 

Agricultural science has made prodigious advances in the United 
States since 1865, when Federal authority and aid were for the first time 
given to the founding of agricultural colleges in all the states. The farm- 
ing vocations now have back of them as much applied science, probably, 
as medicine and the various kinds of engineering, though of course it is 
impossible that typical farmers should learn as much of this applied science 
as do physicians and engineers. Nevertheless there is little future for 
the farmer who- is not able-minded enough to make considerable use of 
scientific knowledge and method. Nearly all of us have had enough 
contact with the farming vocations to answer some of these questions: 

I. What are the chief visible characteristics of typical farmers whom you 
have known whose chief money income is derived respectively from: market 

632 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 633 

gardening near large cities ; corn, oats, and hogs. Middle West ; California 
fruit; Southern cotton; New England dairying; Southern tobacco; Pennsyl- 
vania "general farming" ; Oregon apples ; Northwest wheat ; range cattle ; 
"stall-fed" beef; poultry as specialty? Separately consider such aspects as: 
their usual property ; prevalence of renting ; optimistic outlook ; usual culture ; 
boys "leaving the farm" ; extent of applied science ; contentment of "women 
folk"; usual forms of cooperation; probable future. 

Select one of the foregoing and endeavor to "job analyze" a typical day's 
work and a typical year's work. How far ahead must the farmer plan, 
as a rule? 

2. Trace from memory some typical history of a farmer's son who became 
in turn a farmer, from the age of ten to forty-five, showing the stages he 
passed through. When did he become an "independent farmer" ? How did he 
get needed capital? 

3. Trace the stages by which some person known to you started out as 
a farmer, but finally "failed." How far did this failure seem due to poor 
managerial ability? 

4. In your experience, do the ablest sons of prosperous farmers usually 
become farmers? The least able sons of unprosperous farmers? How are 
these conditions affected by proximity of industrial and commercial cities — 
Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Alabama? Does it seem probable to you that 
the farming vocations will in the future be recruited chiefly from persons 
with not enough intelligence to enter the professions, but with intelligence 
superior to that of common labor? 

5. What kinds of persons is it folly for us to urge to "stay on the farm"? 
What kinds of urban people should be urged to go to the farm? 

THE AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONS 

Agricultural vocations were followed, in 1920, by nearly eleven 
million persons — of whom slightly more than one million were women. 
Further study of the census figures shows that most of the women thus 
recorded as "farm laborers" were in Southern states — hence obviously 
they were colored. 

Agricultural vocations are less attractive to large proportions of farm 
boys of superior abilities than are professional and business callings. 
Many farm boys of less than average abilities, starting perhaps as "hired 
men" on farms, become eventually wage-earners on railways, and in 
mines and factories. This trend "away from the farm" has been active, 
probably, since long before Revolutionary times. Very rarely has there 
been any perceptible drift from the city to the country. Various classes 
of immigrants from the peasant classes of Europe became farmers in 



634 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP OF THE AGRICULTURAL 
VOCATIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) 



TOTAL 



All occupations 

Agriculture, forestry, and animal 
husbandry 

Dairy farmers, farmers, and stockraisers 

Dairy farm, farm, and stock-farm la- 
borers 

Dairy farm, farm, garden, orchard fore- 
men 

Fishermen and oystermen 

Foresters, forest rangers, and timber 
cruisers 

Gardeners, florists, fruit growers, and 
nurserymen 

Garden, greenhouse, orchard, and nur- 
sery laborers 

Lumbermen, raftsmen, and woodchop- 
pers 

Owners and managers of log and timber 
camps 

Other agricultural and animal husbandry 
pursuits 



41,614,248 

10,953,158 
6,201,261 

4,041,627 

93,048 
52,836 

3,653 
169,399 
137,010 

205,315 
8,410 

40,599 



33,064,737 

9,869,030 
5,947,425 

3,248,712 

78,708 

52,457 

3,651 
160,116 

127,579 
205,036 

8,397 
36,939 



8,549,511 

1,084,128 
253,836 

792,915 

14,340 
379 

2 

9,283 
9,421 

279 

13 

3,660 



America, especially during the period when good land was purchasable at 
low rates. 

The economic and other social consequences of the "urbanization" of 
native born Americans has long been viewed with much misgiving. In 
part, of course, it is the product of the "mechanical age" in agricultural 
work. To produce a unit of food now requires far less labor on the farm 
than formerly — in the case of wheat, possibly only one eighth as much. 
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the labor now required to 
produce a unit of food is dispersed — some to iron and coal mines, some 
to central factories, only a part remaining on the soil. The labor that 
makes the steel and the machinery of the harvester is, of course, labor 
toward the ultimate production of wheat. 

In part, too, urbanization results from our abundance of raw resources 
other than soil. Nature has foreordained Americans to be a mi.iing, 
lumbering, railroading, steel-making, meat-packing, and even textile-manu- 
facturing people. No other people produces so much, consumes so much 
and accumulates so much, as we. The farming vocations are not, in 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 635 

popular valuation, the best, either for comfort, leadership, or opportunity. 
Neither are they the worst. Hence the ablest youth leave the farms, and 
the subaverage are often forced from them — at least, if such farms are 
anything but poor hillsides, swamps, or pine barrens. 

But future history will certainly be different here from the past. The 
free land now left is not to be farmed — at least, by individuals. Good 
farm land is high-priced. More than half our population — a population 
with high standards of consumption, too — is urban. Fewer people are 
producing food, and these are using land and tools that become more 
costly year by year. 

We may become so industrial as to wish to pattern after industrial 
England in drawing our food from foreign lands — as we now get coffee, 
bananas, rubber, and much sugar. But, until the tropics come more fully 
under cultivation, the farming lands of the rest of the world could not 
supply us and Europe too. Hence the probable future for the agricultural 
vocations in America is bright — at least, for youths of superior native 
ability, vocational training, and industry. Land, markets, science, and 
machinery await them. Perhaps their greatest need for the near future 
will be sustained and efficient cooperation in marketing, large-tool owner- 
ship, and conservation of fluid credit. 

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

America has always been very much an agricultural country. Within 
a scant hundred years it has quintupled its agricultural lands. Few Old- 
World traditions have held valid in New-World tillage and husbandry. 
The American farmer has been forced by many conditions to use much 
machinery, to employ scientific methods, and to market at a distance the 
major part of his product. 

Our people have, therefore, made effective demands for governmental 
and commercial aid to agriculture. Agricultural colleges, experiment 
stations, and information service stations are widely distributed. Large 
corporations have devoted themselves to the manufacture of implements, 
to the marketing of meats, to the transportation of perishable products. 
Farmers themselves have formed successful associations to market fruits, 
develop irrigation and drainage systems, and to improve breeding animals. 
When a considerable number of farmers feel the same need, they can 
easily procure government service in meeting it. 

Our urban populations are not without interest in agriculture. They 



636 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

realize that a large part of their food, much of the raw materials they 
use in manufacture, and the markets for their products rest on a basis 
of prosperous farming. They are aware of the "drift to the cities," and 
would check it if they could. They dislike to contemplate a steady mount- 
ing of prices of farm products. 

More effective farming for the next generation, if it is to come, must 
derive from many sources — better conservation, better transportation, 
better marketing, new inventions, more science, and more and better 
education. But the greatest of these, perhaps the source of sources, is 
education. 

For half a century Americans, urban hardly less than rural, have given 
through taxation freely to education for farmers and farming. We have 
had a growing faith in agricultural education especially. Seldom have 
we known exactly what we meant by agricultural education — but the 
words have always had a magical lure. We have therefore experimented 
more or less blindly, but always with much faith. 

Now we have at least the beginnings of a national program of agricul- 
tural education. True, some phases of that program are only barely de- 
cipherable in the educational theory and practice of the nation. But exist- 
ing traces are important as suggesting possible future developments. Also, 
we are still much confused (without admitting it, often) as to specific 
objectives. Our faiths, enthusiasms, and credulities, of course, often lead 
us to expect good crops of educational values from barren soil or poor 
seed. We often have to get public support by methods familiar to the 
prospectus writer. Figs do not grow from thistles, even in agricultural 
education; but at certain stages of growth it is certainly not easy to dis- 
tinguish between thistles and fig trees — so why not believe that they are 
all figs? 

Our national program of agricultural education in 1921 has many com- 
partments. First, we should distinguish between those types that con- 
tribute chiefly to liberal education, and those types that are designed to 
contribute to vocational education. They are still somewhat blended, to 
the great confusion of each purpose. Then we should distinguish, within 
the field of vocational education, some types that are higher or collegiate, 
and others that are lower or secondary. We should distinguish full-time 
from part-time and extension. Finally, we should distinguish basic (con- 
taining a large amount of practice) from technical (consisting chiefly of 
book and laboratory knowledge). 

These various types may be classified as follows : 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 637 



A. LIBERAL OR APPRECIATIONAL 

1. Phases of nature study and gardening as agriculture in the first six 
grades of urban or rural elementary schools. 

2. Practical arts, giving home project work in upper grades, for pupils 
chiefly between twelve and fifteen. 

3. General courses in technical or informational agriculture in high 
schools, 

4. Phases of economics, sociology, rural sociology, and (largely yet to 
be developed) liberalizing agricultural studies in college and normal 
schools. 

B. VOCATIONAL OR EXECUTIVE 

5. Technical or informational agriculture (fractional time) in high 
schools for youths of fourteen to eighteen. 

6. Basic full-time or half-time farm training, home projects, or (in a 
few cases) school projects for boys fourteen to nineteen. 

7. Full-time or half-time technical agriculture in special (often board- 
ing) schools for boys or men from fourteen to twenty-five (recent 
tendencies toward winter half-year school attendance, and summer half- 
year home project work). 

8. Full-time agricultural college non-degree work (sometimes like that 
of 7, above, sometimes practical specialties). 

9. Full-time agricultural college-degree work, primarily technical. 

10. Extension courses for experienced farmers, under agricultural 
college auspices (includes "short courses," correspondence courses, extra- 
mural courses, etc.). 



OBJECTIVES OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

These several forms of agricultural education — what are they for? 
To what extent are our aims now realized? In some cases we can answer 
very definitely; in others, only in terms of aspirations and beliefs. 

I. The objectives of cultural education in the grades are yet ill 
defined. All agree that the schools should help children to understand 
their own environment. That justifies nature study, gardening, and the 
like for rural and village children. Probably it is important that they 



638 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

learn of the environments of others. That might justify nature study 
in urban schools. How much? For all children, or only for those of 
easily kindled interests? We need more light here. 

Rural school teachers have been greatly urged to "correlate" the tra- 
ditional studies with projects and problems from country environment. 
Standards of achievement here are still vague, almost mystical. It is 
believed that somehow such teaching will give these children greater 
interest in the country, lures toward the agricultural vocations, and appre- 
ciations of the possibilities of technical agriculture. All these objectives 
are in need of much more extended study. 

2. Practical arts projects, directed, or at least inspired, by interested 
specialists in or out of schools, for country boys from twelve to sixteen 
years of age, have proved very sucessful, at least in kindling and sustain- 
ing interests. Corn clubs, pig clubs, potato clubs, canning clubs, are some 
of the types. Under state and even national auspices, this type of educa- 
tional work has had extensive trial. 

Some boys get very keen vocational appreciations from this home project 
work. A few unquestionably gain valuable vocational powers — manipula- 
tive skills, managerial skills, technical knowledge. The prevailing 
pedagogy bears many points of resemblance to that of scouting. The 
competitive spirit is easily enlisted, perhaps at times excessively. But 
under its pressure the amateur spirit that is natural for this age may 
become a very serious working spirit. This type of education appeals 
almost exclusively to boys naturally keen, zealous, imaginative, ambitious. 
Probably most of the boys who suceeded in these projects have native 
qualities that almost certainly destine thpm to ultimate success in life under 
any conditions. 

3. Technical agriculture, as an academic course in high schools, has 
had a mixed history. Educators have usually introduced it as a contribu- 
tion toward vocational ends. The subject has lent itself well to textbook 
makers, many of the available texts and manuals being remarkably fine. 

It is too early to evaluate achievements from this type of instruction. 
Probably it has no more contributed directly to vocational powers than 
have high-school chemistry, geometry, or commercial law. But the 
objectives of all high-school subjects in terms of culture or appreciation 
are poorly defined. Why should a good textbook course in agriculture, 
supplemented by some laboratory illustration, be inferior as a subject of 
liberal education to physics, algebra, or physical geography — especially 
if an elective system induces only those boys or girls to elect it who really 
care for that sort of thing? 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 639 

Probably it is bad to try to have any school subject serve simultaneously 
the ends of vocational and of liberal education. Both types of objectives 
will almost certainly be poorly met in the process. 

There are good reasons for believing that within the next few years we 
shall be able to give clear and fuller definition to the desirable and prac- 
ticable objectives of liberal education. When that is done we can then 
answer this question: Can not a course in agriculture, suited to second- 
er third-year high-school students, be devised, which will be highly cul- 
tural, especially for city youth? Perhaps a modified form of course could 
be adapted for rural high schools. 

4. In the colleges, too, the pedagogy of liberal education now held is 
clearly inadequate for the purpose of discovering the actual values of 
the rural sociology and other studies related to country life and agricultural 
productions. Since, however, these courses are usually elective, and are 
therefore taken by persons who presumably have genuine intellectual or 
social interests in them, their actual educational values may not be matters 
of very great moment. 

The purposes of any form of vocational education must be determined, 
first of all, through the powers shown by the adults who now follow the 
vocation. The best standards can be found by studying those adults who 
are somewhat above the average of excellence in the performance of that 
vocation. 

The success of any scheme of vocational training must eventually be 
judged also by the achievements in adult years of those trained. Even 
the best vocational school can contribute only part of the manipulative 
skills, managerial powers, technical knowledge, and vocational perspective 
that eventually combine in vocational success. All plans of vocational 
schooling will be uncertain until we learn to measure our own products. 

The agricultural vocations are many. Some are of professional level, 
others require only physical strength and endurance. Our national pro- 
gram of agricultural education recognizes some of these clearly, some 
vaguely, some not at all. The following crude classification of agricultural 
vocations will help to classify the objectives of vocational schools of agri- 
culture : 

1. The professional agricultural vocations — teaching, experiment station 
work, analysts, county agents, etc. 

2. Specialized managerial vocations on large plantations, with large 
herds, for farm-produce marketing, etc. 

. 3. "Owning and working farmer" vocations, varied according to locality 
and according to degree of specialization of major lines of production. 



640 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



4. "Tenant farmer" vocations, varied also according to region, degree 
of specialization of product, and perhaps social status of tenant. 

5. Expert or specialized agricultural employee, wage-earning or tech- 
nician service. 

6. General employee service (farm hand, harvester, unskilled labor). 
On certain problems of relating vocational agricultural education to the 

above vocations we have considerable well defined experience; and on 
others hardly any.. 

It is a fact that most of the professional workers, as defined above, are 
degree holders from agricultural colleges. It is also a fact that agri- 
cultural college-extension courses have become increasingly well adapted 
to the needs of experienced farmers, usually men over twenty-five years 
of age. 

Degree holders also fill to a considerable extent managerial positions ; 
but the extent to which their entrance and success in managerial work 
is due, on the one hand to the native excellence of the men thus selected, 
and, on the other, to the training actually given them in college, is un- 
certain. 

Persons taking full-time non-degree work in agricultural colleges prob- 
ably become farmers in the main. The same seems to be true of a large 
proportion of the more mature students taking full-time or half-time work 
in agricultural secondary schools. 

The proportion of agricultural college graduates who become owning 
or tenant farmers or farm laborers seems to be small, though accurate 
estimates are wanting. 

It is too early to judge the results from full- or half-time secondary 
schools of basic training. Some of their graduates will probably go to 
college and then enter the professions. Those who do not will probably 
become, eventually, owning or tenant farmers, after a period as laborers, 
minor partners, or in specialist service. 

The actual vocational functioning of half-time or other pre-vocational 
technical instruction seems to the present writer still completely in doubt. 
As in the case of pre-vocational technical high schools, courses will often 
function as college preparation. Or, as in the case of commercial courses, 
such agricultural courses are selective of the interests and abilities 
destined to the farming vocations in any event. It is doubtful whether 
they serve the purposes of guidance, and it is never certain that they 
make contributions to genuine vocational competency. 

Of the foregoing types of agricultural education, some are growing in 
importance, some declining-. 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 641 

Agricultural colleges are expanding both their degree work and their 
extension courses. Probably their non-degree residence work is dimin- 
ishing. It is not unlikely that the needs of the country for agricultural 
leaders and specialists of professional grade are being very well met. 
Half-time secondary schools of basic training are expanding. Full-time 
residence secondary technical schools are. not greatly increasing, and many 
of them are trying to become schools of basic training through use of home 
projects or correlation of courses with practical work performed in the 
long vacation seasons. 

Pre-vocational technical courses in high schools are of diminishing im- 
portance, except in states backward in the development of basic secondary 
schools of farming, or where strong faith still attaches to that hybrid 
called "agricultural high school." 

Practical arts home project work expanded greatly under v/ar-time 
needs, but seems to have reached a stationary level for the time. Nature 
study through agriculture in the grades, as well as general technical courses 
in high schools, are in a bad way, not so much, perhaps, from faulty aims 
as from poverty of good method and aiding devices. 

Several unsolved problems exist in our national scheme of agricultural 
education. The census of 1920 gives the number of farmers and of farm 
laborers in the country as, roughly speaking, six million and four million, 
respectively. Doubtless a large proportion of those classified as farmers 
were over thirty years of age; whilst a very considerable proportion of 
those classified as laborers were under that age. 

Clearly the annual withdrawals from the farmer's vocation will approxi- 
mate two hundred thousand a year. Accessions to that vocation should 
be even more numerous. The census does not help us to ascertain the 
numbers of professional agriculturists in the country in the sense here 
given to the term. But it is a safe guess that from two thousand to five 
thousand young men holding degrees are being annually accessioned to 
these higher callings. 

The problem of first importance to us now in agricultural education is 
that of determining, as far as practicable, the serviceable sources of voca- 
tional training for the farming callings. Is it to be expected that during 
the next twenty-five years the agricultural colleges can or should be ex- 
pected to contribute in large measure to this supply ? To the present writer 
there appears no more good reasons for looking to vocational schools of 
collegiate grade to supply us with new farmers than for looking to cor- 
responding schools for supplies of trained carpenters, cooks, coal-miners, 
and machinists. 



642 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

The greatest present need of America (in agricultural education), as 
the present writer sees it, is the widespread development of very practical 
agricultural schools of secondary grade within daily reach of farmers' sons 
from fifteen to twenty years of age. A state like Ohio should probably 
have three or four hundred such schools. They can be economicall3; 
administered with as few as fifteen pupils in average attendance, since 
most of the needed equipment, except books, will be found on the boys' 
own farms. At least half of the pupils' working time, preferably for 
twelve months, should be spent in the execution of comprehensive, money- 
making home projects, inspired and guided by the teacher. Pedagogical 
formulations for this method are now well defined, although many edu- 
cators still feel the need of inducing, if not indeed requiring, the carrying 
of parallel cultural courses, instead of the better plan of insuring the 
completion before entry upon vocational training (as do all efficient pro- 
fessional schools) of an amount of general schooling adequate to learners' 
powers, interests, and future needs. Too often educators still yield to 
the vicious practice of trying to have practical vocational training counted 
for credit toward college admission, thus entailing a very academic 
character on the so-called vocational training. 

But progress is being made. Educators are increasingly recognizing 
the futility, for persons of average intelligence rating at least, of extensive 
pre-vocational technical instruction in agriculture. The home project 
method, with its insistent contributions to managerial powers, is being 
widely adopted. 

A second problem of first magnitude at present remains to be solved. 
Who can become successful farmers under present conditions? It is a 
truism that the farmer of to-day is a large capital holder, a manager, a 
man of commerce, and a day laborer. Like an able home-maker, he 
seems obligated to achieve powers everywhere else distributed among 
specialists. 

Who can reach this stature? Suppose we take a thousand farmers' 
sons at random, all fifteen years of age,- and subject them to the best of 
known intelligence tests. Before us are the farm-owning or tenant- 
farming vocations of the Northern Mississippi Valley states. Shall we 
advise those rating among the lowest fourth in intelligence to strive to 
become farmers at twenty-six or thirty? How about those in the third 
quarter from the highest? 

Shall we advise any of these to try to content themselves with the 
farm laborer's status for all their lives? Are men of less than average 
intelligence almost certain to break down under the load of "managing 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 643 

farmer" ? On the other hand, could we give the specific vocational train- 
ing toward useful specialties, as we can do for corresponding men in 
commerce, industry, mining, and transportation? Or may it be that 
"intelligence," as the psychologist defines it, does not correlate at all 
closely with "farm management" as a competitive social order shapes it in 
a world of practice? 

Pick-up vocational education for the farming callings has given Amer- 
ica many strong farmers ; but it has also broken and wasted uncounted 
others. Fathers can readily induce or compel their sons to learn many 
of the specific arts — of chopping, digging, and feeding — that enter into 
the composite vocations of farming. But they are less successful in 
teaching scientific principles and practice; and they are apt to overlook 
altogether the teaching of management. 

Agricultural schools are almost invariably technical schools only at 
first — that is, they exist to impart technical knowledge, not manipulative 
or managerial skills. Nowhere is there less of "learning to do by doing" 
than in certain kinds of agricultural schools. Their faculties take for 
granted that the boy has had a lot of practical experience before coming; 
or that he will get it in abundance when he returns to work. Some boys 
succeed fairly well on such a program — probably the boys who would 
easily succeed anyway because of their inherent abilities and enthusiasm 
for results. But technical schools of farming are of doubtful service to 
youths of average abilities if they devolve upon their learners no com- 
prehensive responsibilities for learning management and superior tech- 
niques under trained directors. 

Hence the marked tendency, in recent years, to invent true "vocational 
schools" for the various species of agricultural callings. In these it is 
planned that students shall do much "practice" — either on land and with 
live stock owned by the school, or on home land. But manipulative prac- 
tice is not enough — much "headwork" is also necessary. In some ex- 
pensive schools farm managers and teachers do most of the planning and 
take most of the responsibility, leaving the students to execute orders, to 
follow directions. This procedure might not be bad if the primary pur- 
pose were to train farm laborers. But that vocation is not a popular one 
in America. 

The home project school of farming of which good examples are now 
found in several states, seeks from the outset to throw upon the pupil 
manipulative and managerial responsibilities proportionate to his age, ex- 
perience, and strength. He starts with a project — not a toy project, but 
one large enough to net him a return for labor and management not less 



644' EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

than fifty dollars a year and preferably one hundred and fifty dollars, if 
he is sixteen years old and not obliged to give time to his father's work. 

From the beginning he is a farmer — on a boy-sized farm, of course. 
He rents land, orchard trees, or enough live stock. He plans his year's 
work, keeps accounts, and takes each successive step on his own respon- 
sibility, after having consulted his teacher and read sufficient references 
to know what he is about. His project continues until he has finally 
marketed his product, turned back his rented equipment, and squared his 
accounts. 

A boy giving his full time to such a project has altogether available 
some twenty-four hundred hours in a year. It is probably well that he 
should plan a project of sufficient magnitude to take twelve hundred hours 
of manual labor — the equivalent of four hours a day for three hundred 
days. This would leave twelve hundred hours for technical study, labor- 
atory work, visitation, travel to school headquarters — since the farm or 
barn is part of his "school." Of course, time distributions must be very 
flexible, according to project. A dairy project might require three and 
one half hours each day for three hundred and sixty-five days. A poultry 
project might require time at the rate of two hours daily for three 
hundred days, and eight hours daily for sixty days. Tillage projects might 
require no manual labor during some months, and eight hours daily during 
planting, tillage, and harvest times. 

Though the home project method is still somewhat experimental, there 
can be little doubt of its superiority over all other methods for mechanically 
minded boys of fair to good native abilities. It is the only method that 
insures maximum apperceptive readiness for "related technical knowl- 
edge." It utilizes to the maximum the motive of gain through productive 
work — the real economic motive. 

The paralyzing affliction of this type of school just now is its ambition 
to be high school and vocational school, too. It wants to keep its cake 
and eat it too. It has, naturally, little social prestige by itself as yet — just 
as the "alfalfa" students had in state universities a generation ago. So 
the parents of its pupils, its pupils, and its teachers, in a few cases, want 
it to shine in the reflected luster of the liberal high school. Colleges of 
agriculture, journalism, business administration, even engineering, and 
especially teaching, have wrestled or are still wrestling with the same 
misguided ambitions in connection with liberal arts college education. 
Even educators who would scorn to ask that a student applying for admis- 
sion to a college should be given substantial "entrance credits" for his 
expertness in barbering, carpentry, or locomotive driving, are found urging 



AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 645 

such credit for students who have had a year or more of training toward 
a specified farm vocation. 

The only safe and sane course comprehensible by the present writer is 
that the school of liberal, and the school of vocational, education should 
have no concurrent pedagogical interdependence . It can not ordinarily 
profit a boy or a man to try to get working -time vocational and liberal 
education simultaneously, any more than it can profit a man to try to 
conjoin vocational duties and cultural interests within the same hours of 
the working day. 

This language must be carefully interpreted. It does not infer cessa- 
tion of all cultural education; but it puts this outside of vocational work- 
ing hours. Every wholesome person at any age is expected to divide his 
waking time among work, civic duties, various forms of intellectual and 
physical recreation, and further personal culture. Every normal person 
is expected to devote his full best working time from the age of six at 
least to fourteen, for many to sixteen or eighteen, and for a few to 
twenty or twenty-two, to the getting of general or liberal education. 

The boy of seventeen is one of these persons. If, after ten or eleven 
years of general or liberal education, he elects to stop and thenceforward 
give his full working hours for one or two years to vocational education, 
no one should forbid or discourage him, any more than they would if he, 
with his parents' approval, wanted to go to work for wages. 

But, of course, he should be encouraged and assisted to keep up his 
out-of -working hours culture, recreations, further development, — just as 
his seniors do, — whether he be working for wages or working in the full- 
time vocational school. 

Again, if a boy at fifteen or eighteen, or even twenty, who is interested 
in more full-time liberal education, is also allured to the vocational school, 
he should, of course, be advised to continue in the general high school as 
long as he can safely do so without imperiling his chances for a necessary 
minimum of systematic vocational training. 

The vocational school of farming, and the liberal high school, should 
not be pedagogically interdependent concurrently for the same pupil, as 
said above. Of course, these two schools can, and probably should, utilize 
the same building, possibly at times the same means of transportation. 
But they should not have the same courses, the same books, the same 
library, the same laboratories, the same school hours, the same teachers, 
or the same principal. The objectives of the two types of schools are 
as fundamentally unlike (when adequately determined) as are the objec- 
tives of a college of medicine and" a college of liberal arts, as a school of 



646 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

carpentry and a liberal arts high school. Faculties, working hours, work- 
ing conditions, are fundamentally different. Do not let us forget that 
the vocational school of agriculture is not at the school building ; only part 
of it, and the minor part at that, is there. The major part is at the barn, 
out in the field, or in the poultry yard, where the student is chiefly learning 
farfmng. 

Of course, the college preparatory and other full-time high-school pupils 
and the vocational-school pupils should come together in out-of-work 
hours, in dances, visiting, reading, and all the rest, just as should high- 
school pupils and their wage-working sisters and parents. The two schools 
should not join in day-time athletics or sports, since people in productive 
work do not do it that way. Perhaps Saturday afternoons can be reserved 
as a leisure time for prospective and actual farmers. Do medical colleges 
have football teams? Do engineering students spend many afternoons on 
baseball fields? 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Bailey, L. H. The State and the Farmer. 

Bricker, G. a. The Teaching of Agriculture in High Schools. 

Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics (Ch. 3, The Factors of 

Agricultural Production). 
Davenport, E. Education for Efficiency. 
Davis, B. M. Agricultural Education in Public Schools. 
Galpin, C. J. Rural Life (Ch. 2, The Psychology of Farm Life). 
Snedden, D. Vocational Education (Ch. 5, Agricultural Education). 
Stimson, Rufus. Vocational Agricultural Education (Ch. 3, Project 

Study). 
Turberville, a. S. and Howe, F. A. Great Britain in the Latest Age 

(Ch. 6, The Decline and Revival of the British Farming). 



CHAPTER XLIX 
COMMERCIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE commercial or business vocations, it is well known, stand higher in 
popular esteem than do the industrial or agricultural vocations. They 
are "clean" callings, they require "head" rather than "hand" work, and 
they seem the most promising road to business leadership and fortune. 
"Big business" presents spectacular and alluring .aspects to every ambitious 
man — and, in these latter days, to some women. Many business vocations 
offer peculiar opportunities to those young men who are endowed, or have 
acquired, superior powers of "self-help" or self-education. 

Like the industrial vocations, those of business are greatly differentiated 
and specialized. In any city are to be found behind counters hundreds of 
kinds of salespeople — from those selling soda drinks and ribbons, to 
sellers of furniture and machinery. Hundreds of kinds of "field salesmen" 
travel our railroads incessantly — selling cigars or bonds, books or life 
insurance. 

Modern offices differentiate many kinds of clerks— bookkeepers, 
stenographers, file clerks, mailing clerks, and scores of others. 

"Business men" head nearly all kinds of corporation production — from 
coal mines and railroads to department stores and factories. They are 
organizers and executives partly by virtue of their knowledge of finance. 
Large proportions of the graduates of the older endowed colleges now 
seek their careers in this business world. They are willing to begin on 
low levels ; but their goals are the commanding positions created by mod- 
ern trade, finance, and corporate production. 

Women enter the commercial vocations in constantly multiplying num- 
bers. Clerkships and counter salesmanship are usually regarded as "light" 
vocations ; they are carried on indoors ; they permit, or even require, clean 
and attractive dressing, and they promote agreeable social contacts. In- 
door salesmanship should become "woman's work" no less than nursing 
or the teaching of small children. 

1. What intellectual and moral qualifications seem to you essential for 
moderate success as : a retail grocer ; a lawyer's stenographer ; a stock broker ; 
a restaurant cashier; a shoe salesman; a life-insurance salesman; a book- 
keeper? 

2. What commercial vocations are readily accessible to bright girls from 
sixteen to twenty years of age ? Which of these seem to you to exact : su- 

.647 



648 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



perior penmanship; superior spelling; superior English speech; a knowledge 
of Spanish; superior knowledge of arithmetic? 

3. Recall certain "business leaders" at ages forty to sixty of whom you 
have some knowledge. What have been some of the stages in their ascent 
to eminence? Have they been men and women of exceptional endowment? 
Have circumstances peculiarly favored them? 

4. What explanations can you give for the fact -that few women have risen 
to business prominence, notwithstanding the large numbers that during the 
last fifty years have entered the lower ranks? 



THE COMMERCIAL VOCATIONS 



The Commercial Vocations given by the census of 1920 were as 
follows : 

TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMERCIAL 
VOCATIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) 



TOTAL 



MALE 



All Occupations 

All commercial occupations . 

Trade 



Bankers, brokers, and money lenders 

Clerks in stores 

Commercial travelers 

Decorators, drapers, and window dressers 

Deliverymen 

Floorwalkers, foremen, and overseers 

Inspectors, gangers, and samplers 

Insurance agents and officials 

Laborers in coal and lumber yards, warehouses. 

Laborers, porters, and helpers in stores 

Newsboys 

Proprietors, officials and managers (n.o.s.)\ . . . 

Real estate agents and officials 

Retail dealers 

Salesmen and saleswomen 

Undertakers ., . . 

Wholesale dealers, importers, exporters 

Other pursuits (semi-skilled) 



Clerical Occupations 

lAgents, canvassers, and collectors 

Bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants 

Clerks (except clerks in stores) 

Messenger, bundle, and office boys and girls. 
Stenographers and typists 



41,614,248 
7,369.520 

4,242,979 
161,613 
413-918 
179,320 

8,853 

170,235 

26,437 

13,714 

134,978 

125,609 

125,007 

27,961 

34,776 

149,135 

1,328,275 

1,177,494 
24,469 

73,574 
67,611 

3,126,541 

175,772 
734,688 
1,487,905 
113,022 
615,154 



33,064,737 
5,275,612 

3,575,187 

156,309 

243,521 

176,514 

7,698 

170,039 

22,367 

12,683 

129,589 

124,713 
116,602 

27,635 
33,715 

139,927 
1,249,295 

816,352 

23,342 
72,780 
52,106 

1,700,425 

159,941 

375,564 

1,015,742 

98,768 

50,410 



8,549,511 
2,093,908 

667,792 

5,304 

170,397 
2,806 

1,155 
196 

4,070 

1,031 

5,389 

896 

8,405 

326 

1,061 

9,208 

78,980 

361,142 

1,127 

794 

15,505 

1,426,116 

15,831 
359,124 
472,163 

14,254 
564,744 



U. S. Census abbreviation for "not otherwise specified." 



COMMERCIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 649 

Commercial education in the United States originated in private schools 
of penmanship and bookkeeping, which were found to be very profitable 
financial ventures nearly three quarters of a century ago. By the last 
decade of the nineteenth century these private schools, catering to very 
real vocational interests, had more than one hundred thousand students. 
From that time our public-school departments of commercial education 
competed sharply with them, and attendance on these public-school depart- 
ments has grown with extreme rapidity. It is probable that states and 
municipalities now contribute considerably more of public funds to com- 
mercial education than both states and the federal government (under the 
"Smith-Hughes Act") contribute to agricultural, industrial, and home- 
making vocational education of secondary grade. 

Do commercial departments and schools, as now carried on, give genu- 
ine vocational education? Private schools unquestionably endeavor to do 
so, simply as sheer business policy. Public schools have usually tried to 
avoid giving specific vocational training, in their preoccupations with cul- 
tural or general education. They have wished their pupils to take fairly 
full programs of general studies besides the so-called commercial studies. 

The result is that commercial curricula, as found in departments of 
regular high schools, or in high schools of commerce, are technical rather 
than vocational. Furthermore, the technical studies are blended with non- 
vocational studies, such as general English-language courses, algebra, and 
sometimes history. 

Frequently, also, students are required to take technical studies that 
relate to other vocations than the one they are likely to follow. Girls ex- 
pecting to become stenographers have, in many cases, been required to take 
bookkeeping and a foreign language — studies that might have vocational 
pertinency for some students, but not for them. 

Nevertheless in some high schools girls are now given what amounts 
to fairly definite preparation for the trade of typist-stenographer. Em- 
ployers can expect candidates to bring a fairly well standardized prepa- 
ration in skills and essential technical knowledge. 

The future of commercial vocational education seems now fairly 
clear, partly as a result of several inquiries or surveys of the commercial 
vocations that have recently been made. These seem probable tendencies : 

I. Recognition not only of the large variety of commercial vocations 
now followed by men, women, and youths, but also of the highly variable 
demands they make for native abilities, general education, and specific 
training. Some are appropriate only for the levels of ability that can 
readily complete a college education; others can be followed by persons 



650 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

who can barely enter a high school. Some can be entered only in mature 
years, others can be well undertaken by juveniles. 

2. Abandonment of purely technical courses of instruction, except pos- 
sibly for persons of very superior mental powers ; and substitution for 
these of practical, intensive training courses, based as far as practicable 
on productive work. For "junior" office vocations and for many types 
of highly differentiated salesmanship, it is probable that training courses 
of ninety to one hundred and twenty days may be found amply sufficient. 
Other office vocations and the more complex forms of salesmanship will 
probably prove to be essential "upgrading" or "promotional" vocations — 
to be prepared for after the candidate shall have had substantial amounts 
of practical experience on other or lower levels. This procedure is fol- 
lowed now, but without well defined purpose, in the preparation of busi- 
ness executives. 

3. The vocation of stenographer-typist has not only developed enor- 
mously in recent years, but there now exist several well defined grades 
of demand. Therefore schools may be expected, first to regularize their 
specific training for this vocation, and second to certificate their vocational 
graduates according to grade of proficiency actually reached. 

4. It will probably be found that "secretarial" positions, properly so 
called, are essentially upgrading vocations, for which it may be of doubtful 
value to give extensive pre-vocational technical instruction. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Eaton, J. and Stevens, B. M. Commercial Work and Training for 

Girls. 
Hooper and Graham. Comm^ercial Education at Home and Abroad. 
Snedden, D. Vocational Education (Ch. 6, Commercial Education). 
Stevens, Bertha M. Boys and Girls in Commercial Work. 
Thompson, F. V. Commercial Education. 



CHAPTER L 
HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE family life of all civilized peoples centers in homes. These are 
the essential nurseries of children and the abiding places of monoga- 
mous adult pairs. No effective substitute for the home as an agency for 
the effective rearing of children has yet been devised. Asylums, boats, 
hotels, and boarding schools are utilized under special conditions, but child- 
hood rarely comes to good fruition in them. 

Women, and especially mothers, are the natural custodians and educators 
of children. Hence all peoples strive to realize those kinds and degrees 
of stable residence and economic prosperity which will enable mothers 
to stay with, and primarily to work for, their children. The men of the 
family are expected to be "outworkers" — to work away from the home, 
and bring back to it money or other valuable product sufficient to meet 
financial needs. 

When men must give much of their time to war, or when men are 
generally irresponsible and pleasure loving, mothers are often obliged to 
work away from the home, and also to give their children such care as 
they can. In Europe this condition has long prevailed ; it prevailed largely 
among negroes recently freed from slavery ; whilst industrial disease and 
instability is responsible for much of it in America. But what we like to 
think of as the "American" home is strongly opposed to "outwork" for 
wages by married women. They are expected to give all their time to "in- 
work" with children and the home needs of working adults. 

All adults have had abundant experience with homes, hence they will 
find ready answers to many of these questions : 

1. Describe the "vocational" activities of your mother. In what respects 
had these been learned imitatively as "practical arts" ? In what respects were 
they essentially "applied science"? 

2. In what respects are these "homes" : hotels ; sleeping cars ; barracks ; 
orphanages; palaces; prisons? Would you prefer a child to be "brought up" 
in a good city apartment or on a small farm, assuming that in the first case 
his father works away from home each day, and that in the latter his father 
is near by at work? Would you decide differently for boys and for girls? 
Is the modern urban home well designed for children? Why? 

3. Does the wage-earning work that the great majority of women now 

651 



652 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

do for some years prior to marriage contribute, in your estimation, good or 
bad effects toward their later home-making vocations? Separately consider: 
teaching; nursing; domestic service; factory work; stenography; laundry 
work; factory dressmaking. 

4. Suggest essential differences in the home-making vocation according as 
the woman: (a) has an income for home purposes of six to ten thousand 
dollars a year; (&) has only fifteen hundred dollars; (c) has one or two 
children; (d) has six or seven children. 



CERTAIN PROBLEMS 

The rapid evolution of home economics studies in content and in 
popularity during the last thirty years is familiar. Owing to the general 
acceptance of the Smith-Hughes Act by the states, as well as to other 
causes, home economics education is still in a state of very rapid evolution. 
The country is presenting certain new demands, not always very articu- 
late, which deserve full consideration in the near future. These demands 
come under three heads : (a) for clear definitions of objectives toward 
which various kinds of courses may be provided; (b) for a larger propor- 
tion of practical training in courses expected to give vocational powers; 
and (c) for development of appropriate specific aims and methods for 
non-vocational courses designed to give vision and appreciation as to home 
and family Hfe and the woman's responsible place therein. 

Research is still needed in these directions : 

a. Systematic studies of the home-making vocations through applica- 
tion of the methods now known as "job analysis." 

b. Illustrative examples of very practical training of "all-round" teach- 
ers of home-making for strictly vocational schools. 

c. Studies of the social conditions determining the best time of life 
for the study of vocational home-making. 

d. Demonstrations of various types of practice work for girls or women 
being trained as home-makers. 

e. Systematic research designed to discover the specific objectives and 
methods appropriate to "liberal" (non-vocational) studies of home eco- 
nomics, in junior high schools, senior high schools, and colleges respec- 
tively. 

The vocation of home-making can, obviously, be analyzed and defined 
at first only in terms of practices now found. In round numbers, from 
eighteen to twenty million adult women are now "full-responsibility" 
home-makers in the United States — chiefly as non-wage-earning wives 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 653 

and mothers; whilst about one and one half million girls (over sixteen) 
and women are "assistant home-makers" on full time — and chiefly as 
domestic servants for wages. 

But the vocation of home-making differs from all others in the grades 
of intelligence (as the term is used by psychologists) found in it. Medi- 
cine, elementary-school teaching, stenography, and the like, take only per- 
sons of superaverage intelligence. Factory work enlists chiefly girls of 
low intelligence. "Full-responsibility" farming claims increasingly only 
those of at least average, or of superaverage, intelligence, although rarely 
the very superior. 

But custom and law permit and encourage women of all grades of 
intelligence to marry, to direct homes, to rear families, and to carry on all 
functions of home-making. Hence it seems utterly futile to discuss home- 
making in terms of uniform standards. If the distribution of intelligence 
among potential home-makers be the same as that of the fifteen hundred 
thousand soldiers who took the army tests, then we should expect 10 per 
cent, to rate as very inferior, 22 per cent, inferior, 22 per cent, low average, 
21.5 per cent, as average, 13.5 per cent, as high average, 7.5 per cent, as 
superior, and 3.5 per cent, as very superior. (This distribution does not 
include the self-selected "superior" men who went to officers' training 
camps, nor the morons who were excluded by local examining boards ; 
hence is of suggestive value only for comparison.) 

It is possible that under urban conditions (and, some social workers 
assert, rural as well) most of the victims of "very inferior" intelligence 
become vagrants and do not found homes. Possibly a considerable pro- 
portion of the "very superior" now elect celibacy. Nevertheless it should 
be evident that the range of intelligence entering home-making is greater 
than in any other distinctive vocational field. The range of their poten- 
tialities for training must, therefore, be no less great. Probably more than 
one fourth of all home-makers in America for the next century could 
not qualify to enter a typical high school, even if they gave years to the 
task. 

Substantial proportions of these women of less than average intelli- 
gence will become relatively "good" home-makers, if we may judge by 
the mothers of the "Boys of '76, 1861, 191 7," or by the mothers of the 
settlers of our colonies and western frontiers. Many a black "mammy" 
became a good cook, nurse, or chambermaid, under systematic training 
in slave days, even though her I.Q. was probably not high. 

Hence we must lay foundations for programs of vocational home- 
making education (and appreciational or liberal as well) by processes of 



654 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

"job analysis" applied to successful examples of homes kept by persons 
of dififerent grades of intelligence, further differentiated by environment 
(rural, urban, etc.), racial conditions, economic resources, etc. For each 
of these we can define "optimum" present standards, after which we can 
proceed to ascertain numbers now falling below these standards, advances 
that should be made in the neixt generation, etc. 

The most serious difficulties to be encountered in doing this are not 
in disentanghng the "strands" of the composite vocation called home- 
making, but in determining what, in some quantitative sense and for 
given levels of ability and opportunity, are "optimum" standards of per- 
formance powers to be expected. In many vocations job analysis is to-day 
made reasonably scientific by the fact that easily defined measures of 
quality and quantity of output are obtainable — e.g., machine-shop, printing, 
tailoring, coal mining. In other cases, as farming, the market value of 
product is a serviceable measure. But the products of home-making are 
not sold in the markets, and only a few of these — bread, clothing, etc. — 
are to be measured by performance standards used elsewhere. Many of 
the most essential products — child care, management, etc. — ^are as yet quite 
unmeasurable. 

Nevertheless systems of standards can be devised by methods now 
familiar to the statistician. Their development will necessarily be labo- 
rious. In the meantime, common sense should be used to the utmost to cor- 
rect the subjective standards, often fancifully extravagant, imposed by the 
technical specialists in all departments of home-making, as well as by the 
practical specialists in needlework. Because the good home-maker is ex- 
pected to preserve health and sanity, it is futile to expect that in her highly 
composite vocation she can be as good a cook as a hotel chef, as good a 
seamstress as a trade dressmaker, or as good a caretaker of the sick as a 
trained nurse. Some progress has been made in developing practicable 
valuations in recent years; but nevertheless the effect of specialization in 
large schools and in the training of teachers is yet undoubtedly heavy 
in the direction of excessive emphasis up'on special technical knowledge 
and skills. 

Much uncertainty seems still to exist relative to the educative possi- 
bilities of home experience, either during girlhood or after marriage. 
Since school courses in home economics have heretofore been almost 
exclusively technical (or informational, and devoid of practice to give 
manipulative or managerial skills), it has been customary to disregard 
varying degrees of home experience brought by the girls. There has also 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 655 

persisted the assumption that practical skills could be acquired after leav- 
ing school. These limitations of vocational training have long prevailed 
in many other fields (except nursing), and are only slowly being corrected 
now in normal schools, medical schools, and engineering schools. 

But present demands set strongly in the direction of requiring practical 
work as a part, and probably a major part, of education for vocational 
competency in every field. The Smith-Hughes Act explicitly imposes this 
requirement, which is still largely evaded in home economics departments. 
Various attempts to meet this need are now being experimented with — 
practice houses, home projects, summer work. The problem should be 
attacked with especial vigor by all institutions training supervisors and 
teachers. 

Home economics courses are now found chiefly in high schools. The 
assumptions underlying most teacher-training courses is that they will 
remain there. But the majority of American girls now spend several 
years as wage-earners before becoming home-makers. It is still very 
doubtful whether more than a small proportion of girls are ready, in mo- 
tive or need, profitably to take vocational home-making between the ages 
of twelve and eighteen. As long as courses have been relatively light 
and academic in character, they have been elected on a parity with algebra, 
chemistry, and history. But realistic vocational requirements will impose 
new conditions affecting choice of courses. There is every sociological 
reason for believing that, once the way is opened, vocational home-making 
will be sought chiefly by persons over twenty years of age, before and 
after marriage. But the whole question should be carefully studied 
under different social situations. 

It is probable that in composite vocations like home-making and gen- 
eral farming, where managerial powers are no less important than ma- 
nipulative, the "home project" is the most promising means of giving 
practical proficiency, as distinguished from technical knowledge. 

COURSES IN APPRECIATIONAL HOME-MAKING 

The time has come to differentiate in elementary and secondary schools 
and in colleges certain non-vocational courses relating to the home, to 
constitute contributions to liberal education, and having in view chiefly 
the development of appreciations, ideals, and general insight. 

It should not prove difficult to develop such courses for girls twelve 
to fourteen years of age in the junior high school, taking suggestions 



656 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

from scouting, club work, and household arts. Given a little more in- 
sight on the part of faculties, such courses could also readily be developed 
in women's colleges, perhaps as part of the social science work. 

But for girls of superior intelligence the high school is probably the 
ideal place for such offerings. Girls of adolescent years should prove 
very responsive. In fact, the chief value of the technical courses here- 
tofore making up the subjects of home economics in high schools has been 
in this direction, without perhaps being wholly intended. 

But the situation needs clearing up. We should have a series of articles 
prepared dealing with concrete possibilities. Our high schools are still 
fumbling after more real objectives of liberal education. The women's 
colleges are still mystified as to what should be the purpose of home eco- 
nomics (except toward the training of teachers) in their curricula. 

THE HOME PROJECT METHOD 

Whatever character will eventually be developed for the specific ob- 
jectives of vocational home-making education, it is certain that questions 
of method will also be of the greatest importance. At present chief 
interest centers in the project method. In agricultural education of 
secondary grade the project method has been generally accepted as far 
superior, for the average student at least, to the more academic methods 
of textbook and laboratory on the one hand, or the more apprenti^^eship- 
like methods of routine participation in productive work, attended by 
study of parallel technical subjects, on the other. Home-making bears 
many points of resemblance to the farming vocations. It is essentially 
a composite vocation. Managerial powers are at least as necessary in it 
as manipulative. It easily breaks up into more or less discrete or separable 
jobs. Its related technical knowledge is to be found in at least a half- 
score of sciences and arts, none of which can be studied in any com- 
pleteness as independent subjects by the, student of average ability or 
available time. Hence, if the project method proves the best in agri- 
cultural education, we have every reason for believing that it can be 
successfully applied in home-making education. 

It is not difficult to analyze out a series of possible jobs in home- 
making, and even to range these in orders of difficulty adapted to dif- 
ferent girls, according to their ages and abilities. Neither is it difficult 
for inventive teachers, experienced in the practical aspects of home- 
making, to dissect these jobs into suitable stages, and thereby to isolate 
out for consideration the detailed procedures that should successively 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 657 

be studied and practised by the learner. But it is difficult, and it be- 
comes in reality almost one of the finest of pedagogical arts, to provide 
for a psychological linking up with the job, or any part of it, of the normal 
related technical, social, hygienic, and cultural knowledge, without which 
linking up the job is only a job (worth something for education in skill, 
of course), and not at all an educational project in the true sense of the 
word. 

The following seem to be some of the principles of organization and 
procedure essential to successful project work in home-making: 

Eivery project should have a certain magnitude based upon customary 
practice in the world of work. Where skills are obtained with some diffi- 
culty, sufficient repetition to carry the learner to an early point of dimin- 
ishing returns (to use the economist's term) should be required. Ex- 
perience seems to suggest that no project should be so small or frag- 
mentary as to require less than six or eight hours, with necessary repe- 
titions, nor yet so extensive as to necessitate more than sixty to eighty 
hours. (In agricultural education the magnitude of projects must be 
much greater because of dependence on "year-round" work.) 

Each project should be very fully analyzed in a leaflet or booklet pre- 
pared for that case or type of learner to which a given individual most 
nearly approximates. The controlling purpose in the preparation of this 
printed analysis should be to make the student as completely independent 
of personal consultation with teacher or others as practicable. We aim 
to produce a worker who can obtain new direction and knowledge readily 
from printed sources — one of the most important goals of all effective 
education. This booklet should give constant reference in page detail 
to books, bulletins, and articles that demonstrably constitute related knowl- 
edge — whether in the immediate field of needed technical knowledge 
clearly necessary to the performance and comprehension of the project 
itself, or in the more remote social, hygienic, and cultural fields given 
significance by the project. 

In most cases, in the pupil's guide to the project, it seems best to make 
approaches by questions — first, questions directing attention to major 
stages of attack on problems, and then questions enabling the student to 
resolve these into easy steps, capable of being worked out one by one. 
(This method of presentation was first used, to the writer's knowledge, 
by Rufus W. Stimson of Massachusetts, in connection with agricultural 
school projects.) 

In the actual working out of a project the learner should be required 
to plan much in advance, to think out details, and even to make notes 



658 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

or written descriptions of what she expects to do, whereon to obtain the 
teacher's prior approval. It must never be forgotten that a major factor 
in good home-making is management, — of one's own time, resources, 
and responsibilities, and not the services of others necessarily, — and that 
the central essentials in good management are prevision, forethought, 
prearrangement, planning- — as found in the competent housekeeper of 
whom we say that "her head runs ahead of her heels." 

The best project work for educational purposes will usually be done 
in the environment most nearly normal for that kind of work and for 
the worker concerrled. Hence projects carried out in a school laboratory, 
a school lunch room, or even a practice house, will often be found lacking 
in essential elements of reality. The home of the girl or woman — her 
parents' home, of course, if she is unmarried — will usually furnish the 
most realistic conditions. Furthermore, the hours, seasons, and all other 
working conditions should as nearly approximate those of the world of 
work as can normally be arranged. 

But of paramount importance is it that the project shall consist of 
productive work. Meals must be cooked to be eaten, beds made to be 
slept in, rooms cleaned to be lived in, babies cared for because the care 
is required, gardens improved because they need it. "Make-believe" work, 
exercises, unessential performances, should be sternly repressed if not pro- 
hibited. Probably in only a few cases — of which the minor division. 
Housing and Furnishing, offers the only instances now apparent — will 
it be necessary to go through the motions only of real work — to "simu- 
late" actual useful performance as we had sometimes to do in training 
our men for war. 

Hence the desirabiHty of putting project work on a commercial basis 
wherever practicable. The useful product should bring to the worker a 
net return for her labor, due allowance being made to the person served 
for the risks and inconveniences of being served by a learner. The for- 
midable obstacle, of course, to this payment for service is the fact that 
so often it will be done in homes where conditions do not normally permit 
the employment of paid service. Here the service must be given. But 
in the cases of project work done in homes where it can replace service 
that would otherwise be paid for, as well as in all cases where the product 
can be sold, a reasonable net return should come to the learner (no deduc- 
tion being made for school supervision or facihties provided as part of 
the educational process). 

Each project must be made the vitalizing center for the study of that 
technical or interpretative knowledge which is germane to it. Caution 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 659 



must be exercised in providing that such study of related technical knowl- 
edge shall be neither too cursory nor too thoroughgoing. Teachers in- 
terested only in immediate performance will scamp on technical learning, 
so that their pupils will be getting the benefits of what is in reality only 
apprenticeship learning — chiefly unrationalized practical skills. Other 
teachers — and under present conditions probably the majority, at least in 
Foods, Laundry, and Accounting — will tend to use the practical work of 
the project only as a suggestion or starting point for endless and inter- 
minable excursions into the fascinating realms of technical knowledge. 

Some teachers will build an entire system of bacteriology around a yeast 
cake and a system of chemistry about a baking-powder biscuit. But, how- 
ever attractive this process to the teacher enthusiast, it is usually death, 
if not to the interests of her learners, at least to their powers of normal 
and wholesome assimilation. Obviously, much pedagogical research must 
be devoted to this subject before we shall be able to proceed confidently. 
For the present, existing textbooks and manuals should be used only for 
reference purposes, and sparingly and circumspectly at that. 

Similarly, the fields of related social, -hygienic, and cultural knowledge 
normally to be entered under the stimulus of project study remain as yet 
almost wholly unworked. Almost every good home-making project can be 
made a very real port of embarkation for the study of some social, health, 
or cultural topics or problems genuinely related to it. Some of these easily 
suggest themselves ; others require the constructive aid of experts. 

All of which suggests the very great desirability of providing for each 
project not only a "pupil's guide," but a teacher's guide as well. If. Fed- 
eral or state or other central authorities would at an early date provide 
detailed suggestions for teachers in booklet form for such projects as 
breadmaking, breakfast getting, home accounting, family garment upkeep, 
afternoon child care, and family laundry, they would be rendering an 
incalculable service. Here would be opportunity for cooperative effort 
in determining the kinds and degrees of technical knowledge that, for 
stated case groups, naturally relate to specified projects. Here could be 
given a wealth of suggestions for related readings, sub-projects, laboratory 
exercises, and oral presentations on the part of the teacher, designed to 
enrich and round out the project so as to make it in maximum measure 
educative. 

Case-groups will obviously range in powers from retarded girls fourteen 
to sixteen years of age (quite incapable of doing regular high-school work) 
to women of twenty-two who have spent six or seven years in wage- 
earning work, or college students of equal age, with seven years of liberal 



66o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

education beyond the elementary school, as well as splendid heredity and 
family culture behind them. Ultimately we may expect to see six or 
seven types of booklet on any individual project, adapted respectively to 
the differing needs and capacities of. a half-dozen widely variant groups. 

It is probable that extreme flexibility in time and order of various 
projects offerings should be favored until we know definitely what are 
the varieties of difficulty to be encountered. Certainly there are no reasons 
known at present why food projects should either succeed or precede 
clothing projects. Simple projects in accounting are just as feasible as 
projects in laundry and child care. In fact, in any of the five major or 
five minor divisions into which home-making projects are for convenience 
here grouped (foods, clothing, house care, laundry, child care; and ac- 
counting, care of sick, housing and furnishing, adult sociability, and yard 
and garden care), it would be practicable to devise simple projects that 
could be taken at any early stage; and it would be no less practicable in 
each to discover projects so complicated and exacting as to require much 
of maturity and experience. 

Within any division we may expect experience to show us certain de- 
sirable sequences of projects, but for the present we should reserve final 
decisions even in these matters. The project method does offer oppor- 
tunities, unequaled under any other method, of adapting work to the 
native powers and previous experience of the individual girl. Hence, 
out of a series of projects we may find it expedient to allow a capable 
beginner with good background of home experience to commence with 
a fairly complicated piece of work. 

Probably we shall tend to develop, in each division, several groups of 
projects, each group representing a different degree of manifest diffi- 
culty. A group suitable for beginners might be designated as the 'V 
group (ai, a2, a3, etc.), while a group presenting difficulties that could 
normally be met only by learners having experience equivalent to that 
required by the successful performance of an "a" group project would 
be called the "b" group (bi, b2, b3, etc.). " 

What administrative organization will prove the best for home proj- 
ect work in home-making ? Here much experimentation is necessary. Anal- 
ogy with agricultural education suggests a few tentative conclusions. 
Much reliance can not be placed on rigidly organized class work. Ideally, 
any given teacher should be prepared to direct home projects in any 
one of the ten divisions — she should, in other words, be an all-found home- 
maker herself, equally competent in clothing, child care, furnishing, or 
food projects. 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 66i 

For full-time work (eight hours daily) one teacher should probably 
not have more than fifteen pupils if she is to preserve suitable contact 
with home projects. For half-time work (four hours, daily minimum) 
it is doubtful whether one teacher should be responsible for more than 
twenty- five girls. Teachers will necessarily have to adjust themselves 
to flexible personal schedules in order to supervise such projects as break- 
fast getting, evening child care, and the like. But, like many others of 
the workers of the world, such as nurses, street-car drivers, waitresses, 
and others, interested teachers will soon adjust themselves to irregular 
schedules, "shifts," "divided turns," and other devices where departures 
from traditional schedules are necessary. 

For full-time students probably not more than three hours daily (for 
five days in the week) should be claimed for class work and joint con- 
ference purposes. One of these hours should regularly be given, doubt- 
less, to the "related social and cultural" readings and discussions that 
are provided to give vision and higher appreciations as to woman's work, 
the possibilities of the home, etc. For these purposes inspiring books 
are needed. Olive Schreiner's Woman and Labor will be used by some 
to advantage. If we possessed a twentieth-century How Gertrude Teaches 
Her Children, it would fill an acute need in home-making literature. Per- 
haps the Woman's Home Companion and other sirnilar journals will be 
found helpful by some teachers. 

For the rest, the teacher will reserve needed time for individual con- 
ferences, sometimes in the home, sometimes in the school where pupils 
are doing their reading. It cannot too often be insisted that good voca- 
tional education is moving steadily toward the methods of "individual" 
instruction, and that pupils must increasingly be taught to rely upon them- 
selves in reading and planning, provided specific guidance thereto is given 
in printed matter. 

"Productive projects," it has heretofore been assumed, will be found 
most accessible in the girl's "own home." But it can be safely prophesied 
that many opportunities, and those the most excellent, will be found, once 
the crusts of tradition and artificial conventions are broken, in homes other 
than those of the girl's parents. Within easy walking distance of any col- 
lege and almost every boarding school to-day are located scores of homes 
in which help is urgently needed — help in caring for children, washing 
clothes, mending, preparing and serving meals, caring for adult sick, reno- 
vating garments, helping with "parties." Here are limitless opportunities 
for the most efifective kind of educative participation, once home economics 
teachers (better call them home-making teachers for the future) shake 



662 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

themselves into the conviction that it is necessary to enter the water if 
one would learn to swim, and cultivate dispositions and ability to propose 
and supervise "part-time" projects among their neighbors on the part of 
their pupils. 

In many cases it may be pedagogically very much better for the girl, 
especially if she be upward of eighteen years of age, to work at projects 
in homes other than that in which she has lived. Furthermore, these 
projects in other homes offer many opportunities for the partial "wage" 
compensation that is so desirable. On the other hand, care must be taken 
not to have more than a small amount of work done under the conditions 
created by a very different financial standard of living than that which 
the girl herself can reasonably expect. A series of projects carried out 
in a home on a $5000 yearly budget might constitute poor, if not disastrous, 
preparation for .home-making in the case of a young woman whose 
prospective husband can hardly expect to earn more than nine to twelve 
hundred dollars a year (1914 prices). 

The application of the project method in rural schools will require some 
modifications of plans designed to meet conditions of urban population 
concentration. Short-course boarding schools will in some cases be found 
the best solution. Intensive full-time courses not exceeding three months 
in length seem to the writer to represent an optimum standard. 

In the case of girls living at home and coming from distant points to 
school, programs could and should be arranged whereunder school at- 
tendance need not be made more than two or three times weekly — the 
remaining days being taken for project work at home, which the teacher 
could arrange to inspect. It must be remembered that, because of the 
practical experience already obtained by the majority of country girls, 
their project work will take the direction of "advanced" or "extension" 
instruction and training. Of course, if the girl is dividing her time be- 
tween liberal and vocational studies, the school attendance requirements 
of the former will control. 

Summer projects are strongly recomm^ended now in some states. If 
properly supervised, these should prove very valuable because of the op- 
portunities they offer for concentrated experience. It is doubtful whether 
"credit" should be given for such work unless it can be adequately di- 
rected, and unless increments of skill and knowledge resulting from it can 
be definitely evaluated. Otherwise we should find it beset by petty de- 
ceptions, whilst its educative character will often be dubious. 

But "summer projects" represent only a passing phase at best, just as 



HOME-MAKING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 



663 



does the "summer camp" work of engineering colleges. The true voca- 
tional school should know no seasons and no vacations — which is not to 
say that individual teachers are to have no vacations. But the institu- 
tional work of the world — homes, hospitals, hotels, rail transportation, 
farming, factory work — goes on in all months. So must vocational school 
work. Where the student wishes to divide the working time of each day 
between liberal and vocational studies — the rather weak and inconclusive 
arrangement now favored by some educators who have little genuine in- 
terest in, and no adequate knowledge of, vocational education — it may 
prove desirable and necessary to reserve the summer months for whole- 
hearted participation in vocational projects. But under any full-time 
vocational program the requirements of the summer months should cer- 
tainly not differ from those of any other months. 

The extent of the home-making and other related vocations is shown 
by the following table : 

TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP IN THE DOMESTIC AND PER- 
SONAL SERVICE VOCATIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) 



MALE 



All (wage-earning) occupations 

Home-makers (estimated) 

Domestic and personal service classified. . 

Barbers, hairdressers, and manicurists 

Billiard-room, dance-hall, skating-rink, etc., 

keepers 

Boarding- and lodging-house keepers 

Bootblacks 

Charwomen and cleaners 

Elevator tenders 

Hotel keepers and managers 

Housekeepers and stewards 

Janitors and sextons 

Laborers (domestic and professional service) 
Launders and laundresses (not in laundry) . . 

Laundry operatives 

Laundry owners, officials, managers 

Midwives and nurses (not trained) 

Porters (except in stores) 

Restaurant, cafe, and lunch-room keepers.... 

Servants 

Waiters 

Other pursuits 



41,614,248 

20,000,000 

3,404,892 

216,211 

24,897 

133-392 

15,175 

36,803 

40,713 

55,583 
221,612 
178,628 

32,893 
396,756 
120,715 

13,692 
156,769 

88,168 

87,987 

1,270,946 

228,985 

84,967 



33,064,737 



1,217,968 
182,965 

24,655 
18,652 

15,142 
11,848 
33,376 
41,449 
17,262 

149,590 
31,224 
10,882 
39,968 
12,239 
19,338 
87,683 

72,343 
258,813 
112,064 

78,475 



8,549,511 

20,000,000 

2,186,924 

33,246 

242 
114,740 

33 
24,955 

7,337 

14,134 

204,350 

29,038 

1,669 

385,874 
80,747 

1,453 

137,431 

485 

15,644 

1,012,133 

116,921 

6,492 



664 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

CooLEY, A. M. Teaching Home Economics (Ch. i to 3, Objectives). 
Myerson, a. The Nervous Housewife (Ch. 4, Housework). 
Pettengill, L. Toilers of the Hom,e (A College Woman as Servant). 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 23, Problem of the 
Place of Home Economics). Also, Vocational Education (Ch, 7). 



CHAPTER LI 
INDUSTRIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

THE industries, in popular usage, include manufacturing, building, 
trades, mining, and transportation. It is also convenient here to in- 
clude under this head one other large category used by the census — public 
service. 

The industrial, like the commercial, vocations are greatly specialized. 
A large factory may include representatives of several hundred distinct 
operative vocations. A railway system classifies its operatives into scores 
of categories. We are told that more than a hundred different v^orkers 
may contribute to the making of a shoe. Even housebuilding, bookmaking, 
and breadmaking have become enormously specialized. 

But specialization takes place at the top as vi^ell as at the bottom. Super- 
intendents, treasurers, inventors, designers, technicians, salesmen, are all 
differentiated in the productive force of a large factory or mine. Such 
an institution is apt to have places for a very genius of an inventor as 
well as for a semi-moron porter or digger. It can use the labor of fifteen- 
year-olds or of ripened executives. 

Vocational education for the industrial callings is a highly complex 
matter. In some, apprenticeship has prevailed for thousands of years — 
brick and stone building, forging, and some other forms of metal working. 
Highly organized vocational schools now give us engineers, technicians, 
and designers. But the rank and file of factory workers are the victims 
of the crudest forms of pick-up vocational education — and there are 
persons, even of much insight, who claim that they neither need nor 
deserve anything better. 

Every reader of this book has long been in, but probably not of, an 
industrial environment. He has been an employer of the services of rail- 
ways, steamboats, telephone systems, hotels, housebuilders, electricians, 
newspaper makers, textile factories, shoe factories, and the like. His 
tableware, furniture, coal, lead pencils, textbooks, buttons, and hats have 
been largely products of "modern industrialism." He has seen at some 
distance belching chimneys, crowds of begrimed workers, and miles of 
workers' tenements. He has read of strikes, panics, and torrential immi- 
gration. He knows that the world is uneasy about "industrialism," but 
has little settled policy as to its future. 

I. Does it seem to you that "power production" is a "good thing" for hu- 
manity ? Separately consider : steam railways, power-driven drills and ex- 
plosives in mining, machine weaving, power-sawn lumber, tractor-driven 

66.=; 



666 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



plows, electrically driven metal working lathes. V/hat proportion of the things 
on and around you, as you work, are power-machine products — shoes, clothes, 
books, furniture, wall finishings, pens, paper, and the like? 

2. Does "power production" make larger populations possible ? Higher 
standards of living? More work for men of "low-grade" intelligence? 

3. Thinking of all the men who build and operate railroads, mine coal, 
make newspapers, erect brick buildings, produce shovels or cotton cloth, and 
manufacture steel, what seem to you the proportions of really unskilled, semi- 
skilled, highly skilled, and technically educated men and women needed? 

4. Recall certain workers, thirty or more years of age, in the callings men- 
tioned below, then estimate the means and stages by which they reached their 
present vocational proficiency : bricklayers ; carpenters ; locomotive engineers ; 
milliners; cooks; plumbers; tailors; coal-miners; janitors; policemen; wait- 
resses; sailors. 

THE INDUSTRIAL VOCATIONS 



The industrial vocations, as given by the census of 1920, were these: 

TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP IN THE INDUSTRIAL 
VOCATIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) 



TOTAL 



All occupations 

All industrial occupations 

Extraction of minerals 

Foremen, overseers, and inspectors 

Operators, officials, and managers 

Coal-mine operatives 

Copper-mine operatives 

Gold- and silver-mine operatives 

Iron-mine operatives 

Operatives in other and not specified mines. . . . 

Quarry operatives 

Oil, gas, and salt well operatives 

Manufacturing and mechanical in- 
dustries ." . 

Apprentices to building and hand trades 

Apprentices to dressmakers and milliners 

Apprentices, other 

Bakers 

Blacksmiths, forgemen, and hammermen 

Boiler makers 

Chemical and allied industries, general labor. . . 

Cigar and tobacco factories, general labor 

Clay, glass, and stone industries, general labor 



41,614,248 
17,742,789 

1,090,223 

36,931 
34,325 
733,93- 
36,054 
32,700 

38,704 

41,389 
45,162 
91,022 

12,818,524 

73,953 

4,326 

65,898 

97,940 

221,421 
74,088 
74,289- 
35,157 

124,544 



33,064,737 
15,574,736 

1,087,359 

36,923 
34,143 
732,441 
35,918 
32,666 
38,605 
41,282 

45,084 
90,297 

10,888,183 

73,897 

17 

60,532 

93,347 
221,416 

74,088 

70,994 

21,295 

120,215 



8,549,511 
2,168,053 

2,864 

8 
182 

1,495 
136 

34 

99 

107 

78 

725 

1,930,341 

56 
4,309 
5,366 

4,593 
5 



3,295 
13,862 

4,329 



INDUSTRIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 



667 



TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP IN THE INDUSTRIAL VOCA- 
TIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) (Continued) 



Clothing industries, general labor 

Food industries, general labor 

Harness and saddle industries, general labor. . . 

Iron and steel industries, general labor 

Other metal industries, general labor 

Lumber and furniture industries, general labor 

Paper and pulp mills, general labor 

Printing and publishing, general labor 

Shoe factories, general labor 

Tanneries, general labor 

Textile industries, general labor 

Other industries, general labor. 

Loom fixers 

Machinists, millwrights, and toolmakers 

Managers and superintendents (manufacturing) 

Manufacturers and officials 

Mechanics (n.o.s.)' 

Millers (grain, flour, feed, etc.) 

Milliners and millinery dealers 

Molders, founders, and casters (metal) .- 

Oilers of machinery 

Painters, glaziers, varnishers, enamelers, etc. . 

Paper hangers . . . .' 

Pattern and model makers 

Plasterers and cement finishers 

Plumbers and steam fitters and gas fitters 

Pressmen and plate printers (printing) 

Rollers and roll hands (metal) 

Roofers and slaters 

Sawyers 

Chemical and allied industries, semi-skilled... 

Cigar and tobacco factories, s.s.^ 

Clay, glass, and stone industries, s.s 

Clothing industries, s.s 

Food industries, s.s 

Harness and saddle industries, s.s 

Iron and steel industries 

Other metal industries, s.s 

Lumber and furniture industries, s.s 

Paper and pulp mills, s.s 

Printing and publishing, s.s 

Shoe factories, s.s 

Tanneries, s.s 



12,776 

159,535 

1,885 

729,613 

67,887 
320,613 

52,263 

11,436 
19,210 
27,480 

170,553 
463,891 

15,96], 
894,662 
201,721 
231,615 
281,741 

23,272 

73,255 

123,681 

24,612 

323,032 

18,746 

27,720 

45,876 

206,718 

18,683 

25,061 

11,378 

33,809 

50,341 
145,222 

85,434 
409,361 
188,895 

18,135 
689,980 

91,291 
168,719 

54,669 

80,403 
206,225 

32,226 



6,414 

143,397 

1,727 

717,022 

62,771 

309,874 

49,786 

8,886 

14,194 
26,703 

134,905 
426,398 

15,958 
894,654 
196,771 
223,289 
281,690 

23,265 

3,657 

123,668 
24,568 

319,697 
18,338 
27,663 
45,870 

206,715 
18,683 
25,061 
11,378 
33,800 
32,072 
61,262 
72,269 

143,718 

116,493 
17,573 

632,161 
60,844 

150,079 
41,321 
39,281 

132,813 
28,598 



FEMALE 



6,362 

16,138 

158 

12,591 
5,116 

10,739 

2,477 

2,550 

5,016 

777 

35,648 

37,493 

3 

8 

4,950 

8,326 

51 

7 

69,598 

13 

44 

3,335 

408 

57 
6 

3 



9 

18,269 

83,960 

13,165 

265,643 

72,402 

562 

57,819 

30,447 

18,640 

13,348 

41,122 

73,412 

3,628 



^ Not otherwise specified. 
' Semi-skilled. 



668 



EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 



TABLE SHOWING MEMBERSHIP IN THE INDUSTRIAL VOCA- 
TIONS, 1920 (U. S. CENSUS) (Continued) 



Textile industries, s.s ^ 

Other industries, s.s 

Shoemakers and cobblers (not in factory) 

Skilled occupations (n.o.s.) 

Stonecutters 

Structural iron workers (building) 

Tailors and tailoresses. . 

Tinsmiths and coppersmiths 

Upholsterers 

Transportation 

Water transportation (selected occupations) . . . 

Road and street transportation (s.o.) 

Railroad transportation (selected occupations) 

Express, post, telegraph, telephone (s.o.) 

Other transportation pursuits 

Public service 

Firemen (fire department) 

Laborers (public service) 

Marshals, sheriffs, detectives, etc 

Officials and inspectors (city and county) 

Officials and inspectors (state and U. S.) 

Policemen 

Soldiers, sailors, and marines 

Other pursuits 



872,391 
622,662 
78,859 
19,395 
22,099 
18,836 
192,232 
74,968 
29,605 

3,063,582 

173,399 

1,121,930 

2,217,122 

463,678 

353,482 

770,460 

50,771 

106,915 

32,214 

55,597 
80,334 
82,120 
225,503 
21,453 



388,978 
410,256 

78,599 
19,326 
22,096 
18,836 
160,404 
74,957 
27,338 

2,850,528 

173,009 

1,119,136 

2,198,978 

266,555 

348,106 

748,666 

50,771 

105,385 

30,968 

50,748 
67,944 
81,884 
225,503 
20,309 



FEMALE 



483,413 

212,406 

260 

69 

3 



31,828 

II 

2,267 

213,054 

390 

2,794 

18,144 

197,123 
5,376 

21,794 



1,530 
1,246 

4,849 

12,390 

236 



1,144 



The mechanical industries include many in which historic apprentice- 
ship survives — masonry, carpentry, plumbing, and some other building 
trades; printing; machine-shop work; certain forms of railroad service; 
and some others. But study of the list as given will show that a large 
proportion necessarily get only pick-up training, and that under even less 
advantageous conditions than are found on farms or in homes. 



PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

If widely developed industrial education in schools is to be provided, 
certain difficult problems of objectives, administration, and method await 
solutions. Among them are these: 

I. Where shall vocational schools be located? There are literally 
thousands of these industrial vocations. In many cases, one school for a 



INDUSTRIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 669 

state or for a group of states would suffice. Clearly, such schools can be 
accessible to homes of young learners only in those cases where specific 
industries are highly concentrated — as wool weaving in Lawrence, collar 
manufacture in Troy, pottery making in Trenton, and automobile manu- 
facturing in Detroit. It is doubtful whether we should expect towns or 
municipalities to take the initiative in providing such schools. Rather 
must they be state and national enterprises — as are now most professional 
vocational schools. 

2. Where shall productive work be done? It is now generally con- 
ceded that nearly all forms of sound vocational training must proceed 
through, and largely by means of, practice on commercially productive 
work. Especially is this necessary in the industrial vocations where manip- 
ulative skills bulk large. 

Heretofore some industrial schools have organized their own productive 
work. Schools of carpentry have built houses. Electrical schools have 
taken up the repair work of the school buildings of a city. Schools of 
printing have supplied state and municipal offices with forms. Schools of 
power-machine operation (on»clothing) have marketed a product. 

But these are, at best, precarious and difficult methods. They compel 
the schools to enter the world of business, and commonly on too small a 
scale to insure real success. 

The alternative is part-time participation in the work of commercial 
factories, mines, railways, and the like. But there are several kinds of 
part-time arrangements. In some the student is first an employee, respon- 
sible for a certain value of output. His practical work may or may not 
be related to his technical studies. In evening and continuation schools 
it is rarely so related. 

Ideally, part-time productive work, to be fully educative, should be 
in a measure under control of the school authority. The latter should 
direct the use of the pupil's time, the sequences of his tasks, and the grad- 
ing of performances. The commercial agency — employer, manager, pro- 
ducer — should, of course, control product, tools, and marketing. Certainly 
no employer should suffer financially for his part in the educative process. 
He must be assured a normal financial return, even if under some con- 
ditions the school authority pays for space, machines, and materials con- 
sumed by learners. But ordinarily a small net wage can be commanded 
practically by learners. 

Such a scheme would be a state-controlled apprenticeship, employers 
cooperating. In effect, that is the scheme of vocational education under 
vhich nurses now obtain their training. The vocational education now 



670 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

developed for physicians and engineers in the later stages of their training 
also substantially follows that principle. 

The success of part-time work of this character obviously depends 
largely on skilful and tactful coordination — in fact, professional coordin- 
ators are essential as part of the teaching force. Only thus can there 
be effective integration of skill-producing practice and knowledge-produc- 
ing technical studies. Only so, too, can the whole scheme give as essential 
by-products appropriate vocational appreciations and ideals. 

3. At what ages shall industrial education be given? Educators, 
accustomed to a social situation that seeks completion of school before life- 
work is begun, expect too simple answers to the above question. Under 
some conditions, industrial education should begin at fifteen ; under others, 
thirty may be too young. 

It is essential to grasp the full significance of the numberless vocational 
levels in modern production. Probably half, at least, of the positions on 
a modern railway or in a large factory are not and ought not to be 
entered by workers under twenty-one or even twenty-five years of age. 
But there are many other specialties for which an age of sixteen amply 
suffices. 

Vocational education for any calling should, manifestly, be commenced 
as nearly as practicable on the eve of probable entrance thereto. If 
certain kinds of work are normally open to persons sixteen years of age, 
let specific vocational training be made available six months or one year 
before that time. Certainly we should not permit a sixteen-year-old to 
begin training for a trade or operative vocation like that of locomotive 
engineer, which is normally open only to men of maturity. 

In other words, a large proportion of "functioning" industrial education 
must be "upgrading" — that is, designed to "lift" the learner, now that 
he has become properly mature and experienced, to higher levels, either 
of proficiency within the vocation heretofore followed, or in some other. 
The factor of selection will, of course, play a part here. Possibly, in many 
industries, those men who at twenty-five have shown most understanding 
and executive ability, should be given special training toward f oremanship. 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Adams, H. C. Description of Industry (see contents). 
Allen, C. R. The Instructor, the Man, and the Job (Ch. 1-8, Aims). 
Allen, F. J. The Shoe Industry (Ch. 2, Shoe Machinery). 
Clay, Henry. Economics (Ch. 2, The Division of Labor). 



INDUSTRIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 671 

Lee, F. S. The Human Machine (Ch. 6, Length of Working Day; and 
Ch. 9, Labor Turnover). 

Link, H. C. Employment Psychology (Part III, Selection and Retention 
of Workers). 

MoRisoN, G. S. The New Epoch as Developed by Manufacture of Power. 

Morris, J. V. L. Employee Training (Ch. 11, Apprentice Training — 
Modern). 

Odenkrantz, L. C. Italian Women in Industry (Ch. i and 4, General 
Conditions). 

Parker, Cornelia S. Working with the Working Women (Ch. 7, Con- 
clusions). 

Pound, A. The Iron Man in Industry (Ch. 3, Mind and Machine). 

Snedden, David. Vocationul Education (Ch. 7, Industrial Education). 

Tead, Ordway. The Instincts of Industry (Ch. 4, The Instinct of Work- 
manship; Ch. 5, The Instinct of Possession). 

Veblen, T. The Theory of Business Enterprise (Ch. 2, The Machine 
Process). 



CHAPTER LII 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

INTERPRETATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 

IT is probable that among the first "schools" that barbarians emerging 
into civihzation organized were those designed to train fighters — since 
fighting was the chief vocation of the aristocrats. These naturally give 
much attention to physical training — on the one hand for strength, agility, 
and endurance, and on the other for grace and virile beauty, since the 
latter were tangible assets to conquerors and commanders. 

But schools evolved since the invention of printing have given place 
very grudgingly to physical education. English boarding schools have per- 
mitted, often encouraged, physical sports. But probably their faculties 
lo®ked upon these rather as helps to discipline than as essential means to 
bodily development. 

Modern physical education began largely with instruction in physiology 
and hygiene — which for many years was much more physiology than 
hygiene. Now the theories of educational aim held by most progressive 
educators give prominent place to "health education" and "physical train- 
ing." Our ideals are now right enough ; but we have only a few adequately 
defined objectives. When we reflect, we realize that many factors in a 
broad scheme of physical education can be supplied only by the home or 
other outside agency, the school lending encouragement and advice. But 
not a little of the "aspirational" educational literature of recent years seems 
to ignore the fact that in many respects the school can serve only as a 
"residual" agency — especially in nurture, physical development, and 
hygienic practice. The best starting point for study of the actual situation 
is analysis of the experience of each one of us : 

1. In what respects is your present "physical development" now fairly ade- 
quate ? Separately consider : size of chest, arms, neck, hands ; basic coordina- 
tions for running, walking, jumping, climbing, throwing, crawling; endurance 
— in physical work, in mental work; grace and beauty of person; regular and 
adequate functioning of heart, lungs, digestive tract. 

2. As respects which of the above parts or functions do you consider your 
"physical development" inadequate ? Trace such inadequacies respectively to : 
heredity, insufficient or bad physical activities in youth, defective nutrition, lack 
of suitable training. 

3. From what illnesses could you probably have been saved in youth if your 
mother had known as much hygiene as is now usually found in a seventh-grade 

672 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 673 

text in that subject? From which could you have been saved if you had 
been taught more hygiene? 

4. What "working conditions" in your school life probably contributed to 
your physical impairment ? Separately consider : eyestrain ; deprivation of 
physical play ; nerve strain ; posture ; ventilation ; infections. 

5. Assume a class of adolescents of whom it is known that all will follow 
teaching as a vocation. Suggest special programs of physical education for 
them, designed to develop, train, or otherwise prepare them for the physical 
strains of the teaching vocations, as men have long been prepared for the 
strains of war. 

OBJECTIVE OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

The conservation of health and other forms of physical well-being 
can be taken as the inclusive purpose or objective of physical education. 
Nature gives the essential foundations — in discriminating appetites for 
food, desires for rest, sleep, play, shelter, and warmth, and instinctive 
avoidance of many dangers. Social art provides many means of conserv- 
ing health — foods, shelter, play, customs, and certain health habits. Ex- 
perience and environmental education rapidly reinforce nature — from 
which the growing child learns avoidance of dangerous animals, steeps, 
waters and machinery, and some luring but unwholesome comestibles. 

Cure of ailment has also its instinctive foundations. Sick and injured 
animals and human beings naturally seek rest, sleep, shelter, and diminu- 
tion of metabolic functions. Even primitive medicine often sought to 
reinforce these, "to give nature a chance" — though sometimes the theories 
of magic prompted action that retarded rather than helped cure, just as 
the hospitals of Lister's early experience made parturition in them with 
medical care more dangerous than childbirth in homes with only the rough 
help of a midwife. 

Conservation of health gradually evolves a host of family and household 
practices — protection from cold, varied diet, sterilizing of foods through 
cooking, avoidance of dirty water. Crude taboos against infected persons, 
and modesty as a means of repressing or postponing prematurity of sexual 
interests, are among these. 

In advanced barbarian and civilized societies the general objective of 
physical education is resolved into several specific objectives. Therapeutic 
arts and the science of medicine evolve in the hands of specialists. Certain 
kinds of quarantine develop. The arts of war and hunting are so clearly 
competitive and their success depend so much upon physical readiness and 
preparedness that a host of forms of preliminary training of a more or 



674 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

less physical nature become customary for males — and perhaps for some 
Dianas. Except when catastrophic environmental changes take places- 
migration, war, famine, access of wealth, — health customs in dietary, 
shelter, prevention, and cure of disease, and the like, probably slowly im- 
prove through trial and error, and survival. 

The general objectives of physical education can best be derived from 
inductive studies of the defects or shortages in the physical well-being of 
adults. Take any adult case-group, for example, "home-making women," 
ages thirty-five to sixty, family incomes over all ranging from twelve 
hundred dollars to twenty-four hundred dollars, rural dwelling, American 
ancestry, three to six children, and schooling from sixth grade to second 
year high school. What are their prevailing shortages as respects physical 
well-being, including needed forms of strength, endurance, and reasonable 
bodily grace or beauty? These can be analyzed, rated as to relative sig- 
nificance, and then ascribed or traced to sources. Some are due to un- 
avoidable inherited qualities of mind or body ; some are the unescapable 
concomitants of environment, including vocation; some could have been 
escaped if the individual had "known" more; some, also, if the individual 
had "willed" to use such knowledge as she had. 

Various other analyses of these shortages in physical well-being are 
practicable. Which are due to contemporary inadequacies in medical 
science ? Which to needlessly bad conditions in work ? Which to defective 
education? Which to defective conditions attending schooling? 

Such analysis is the only proper sociological starting point in determin- 
ing the needs and possibilities of physical education in schools. Let this 
be defined as including all desirable and practicable procedures in schools 
designed primarily to conserve and advance not only health but all the 
other conditions of bodily excellence — physical strength and endurance, 
bodily grace or attractiveness, and the like. 

Education in schools at any given time concerns itself primarily with 
the potentialities of the oncoming generation of adults. If adults of to-day 
show prevalent illnesses due to malaria, and if modern science has discov- 
ered the sources of, as well as easy means of preventing, malaria, then 
the schools should and will impart that knowledge. If adults of to-day 
show serious handicaps due to disregard of dentistry, then the next gen- 
eration can somehow be taught the importance of that form of specialist 
service. If many adults now go through life with diminished efficiency 
or happiness because during the plastic time of youth certain muscles, 
bones, or organs were insuflficiently exercised, nurtured, or trained, then 
schools have clearly indicated outfields of responsibility. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 675 

Objectives of school-controlled physical education can conveniently 
be assembled under these differentiated heads : 

a. Cooperative correction by school and extra-school agencies of 
shortages of extra-school education of home, play-place, farm, etc., as 
respects normal nurture, shelter, physical play, avoidance of danger, pre- 
vention of infection, etc. Concrete points of attack can be determined 
only from analysis of local social situations. Functions of schools here are 
chiefly residual, and, under normal conditions, v^ill be of only minor sig- 
nificance for all ordinary schools. 

b. First-hand control of conditions affecting health under which school 
work is done — including lighting, posture, periods of concentration and 
relaxation, local or school recreation, mental attitudes controllable by 
teacher, ventilation and drafts, school infections, accidents, strains of long 
transport, etc. 

c. School instruction in, and idealization of, a variety of objectives 
emanating from modern knowledge of hygiene : safety first, clean teeth, 
fresh air for sleeping, dry feet, dangers of flies, contaminated water, local 
dietary defects, convalescence from measles and other children's diseases, 
sex hygiene, regularity of eating and other functions, infection of wounds, 
high heels, first aid, and many others. 

d. Health inspection of school children, accompanied by recommenda- 
tion or prescription for removal of adverse conditions diagnosed — defec- 
tive eyes, tonsils, undernutrition, infections, and many others. 

e. School training in : school-room postures, external cleanliness, and 
possibly oral hygiene, lunching, new physical games, and some others. 

f. Initiation by school for continued use outside of school of approved 
forms of physical or other recreation, training, growth-producing activities, 
and the like, including : games for young children ; games for girls eleven 
to fifteen years of age; games for boys eleven to fifteen years of age; 
dances ; intellectual and social recreations suited to persons who have 
heavily worked the larger muscles ; and others. 

g. Development in youth of sane appreciations and ideals of health, 
strength, endurance, and longevity as these should be expected in years of 
maturity, but anticipated and prepared for earlier. Methods of this kind 
of education are still obscure, inchoate, and hardly consciously experi- 
mental (except in the ancient trial-and-error method of education toward 
the soldiers' calling). In this connection much will eventually be done, 
probably, toward eugenics; conservation of physical attractiveness; public 
sanitation ; physical preparation for vocations ; use of leisure ; maternity ; 
moral aspects of sex ; and the like. 



676 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

h. Specific physical training in schools toward ascertained adult voca- 
tional needs — heretofore applicable only toward military callings, but 
theoretically possible toward farming, factory callings, seafaring, mater- 
nity, teaching. 

i. Various form.s of relatively specific "physical training" toward gen- 
eral bodily development, or "big muscle" development, or development of 
vital organs and nerves basic to "big muscle" activities. 

j. Possibly control and direction of "physical work" — as contrasted 
with "physical play" — as a means of physical development — not merely as 
respects size of muscles, agilities, and present strength, but in regard to 
more obscure products of physical and nervous endurance, resistance to 
diseases, poise, and the like. 

The primary function of the home, sociologically interpreted, has 
always been the nurture of children. Obviously, such nurture includes a 
very large proportion of the protections, habituations, and activities that 
permit or promote physical development, and the acquisition of basic ex- 
perience in hygiene. The special opportunities of the school to do what 
the home can not do come with the evolution of scientific hygiene, much 
of which, as knowledge, home-makers have not learned, and some of 
which, as practice, they are indisposed to further, owing to the conserva- 
tism of custom. Other responsibilities accrue to the school when social 
conditions impair the historic competency of the home to provide space 
and incentives for physical play, developmental physical work, morning 
nourishment, supervision in dangerous places, and the like. 

Assuming schools to possess agencies of general health oversight as well 
as some competent teaching service, their residual responsibilities for one 
type of phyical education can be met by establishing cooperative relation- 
ships with extra-school agencies, especially the home. Instruction in 
hygiene can give children appreciations, ideals, and insights that may, in 
some cases, react directly on home practices — dietetic, curative, recreative, 
and the rest. Beginnings have been made in direct communication from 
school to parents, bearing specifically on home provision of hygienic con- 
ditions — operations, glasses, regularity of rest, restriction of dissipations. 
Numberless specific objectives of work of this kind are now appreciated by 
progressive educators, but means to their realization are lacking in definite- 
ness and economy. 

School life involves many artificialities which affect health. The dis- 
ciplinary punishments of older types of schools — corporal punishment, 
solitary confinement (of boarding schools), long standing in difficult 
positions, "keeping after school," and the like, often produced injuries. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 677 

Doubtless many boarding schools promoted infections and vice. Bullying 
has long been increased by the social conditions of boarding and some day 
schools. In all schools, and possibly most of all in Oriental countries, the 
study of books has been a severe tax upon eyes, and most all where 
architectural conditions and night study have imposed poor light. The 
subject is obscure as yet, but probably American blackboards also impose 
their peculiar strains upon eyes. Ventilation has long been a problem, but 
underlying scientific facts are still so obscure that we hardly know as yet 
what is bad ventilation. We can readily understand that from four to 
six hours daily of work in the sitting posture is a highly artificial thing 
for a growing child, and could leave permanent injury if not somehow 
counteracted. The gregariousness of school life facilitates diffusion of 
infections. Very probably certain conditions of school instruction — a 
fretful or terrifying teacher, ill understood tasks, annoyance from fellow 
pupils, noisy rooms — all conspire to produce "nervous" strains. The com- 
petitive sports permitted or conducted by higher schools sometimes result 
in physical injury, as do occasionally also laboratory and shop work. 

Hence modern education evolves a very extensive series of objectives 
of physical education centering in the right control of conditions under 
which school life must be lived and school work done. Scientific standards 
are rapidly being developed in some of these fields — lighting of rooms, 
typography of books, oversight of those entering competitive games, purity 
of drinking water, control of infections. Progress has been made in 
studying problems of alternating recreation periods with periods of work 
and sitting. Some fairly good empirical standards have become generally 
accepted as to lessening worry or fear on the part of children, and in 
promoting social environments charged with hopefulness and cheerfulness. 
Heating and ventilation are still inadequately understood^ as are suitable 
lengths of school day, week, and year in relation to physical well-being. 

We know little yet about the physical strains of transport on children 
carried to consolidated schools. Perhaps we know still less of the con- 
sequences to the ultimate health of sensitive children of certain kinds of 
teaching temperament or practice. Still more obscure are the physical 
results that accrue to womanhood from the ambitious intellectual pursuits 
of algebra, foreign language, and basketball by highly socialized adolescent 
girls. 

It is obvious now that what many of us still think we know about 
ventilation "is n't so." Some of the virtues of the "open-air" room are 
doubtless imaginary. Probably we shall have to recast nearly all our 
traditional notions about posture in school seats. The present writer 



678 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

strongly suspects that one of the most physically harmful conditions 
deriving from schools of certain kinds is "boredom" ; but it is obvious 
that supervision of a much more scientific order than we now have is 
essential before we can mitigate this. 

Health inspection of schools by medically qualified experts becomes a 
means to the ends just referred to. The chief objectives of this are 
now fairly well defined, but we possess few standards as to its desirable 
scope. Health inspection should, theoretically, cover all phases of physical 
education. It should mediate between school and home, assure hygienic 
working conditions in school, supervise school instruction and training 
in hygiene, and promote provision of objectives and facilities for physical 
development and training. Practically it has only begun its work in most 
of these fields. 

Developmental and recreational physical play must, under most 
conditions now prevailing, be carried on largely away from school over- 
sight. Educators seem sometimes to forget that children from eight to 
ten years of age live very active physical lives at least four thousand hours 
a year, of which hardly a third are under the supervision of schools even 
under most favorable conditions. 

But schools may exercise valuable functions, first in idealizing the extent 
and character of such physical activities, and second in literally "training" 
its pupils in new and more adequate games. Especially important is it 
that schools develop practical attitudes in laying foundations of interest,' 
appreciation, and habits toward the recreational activities to be followed 
when school-provided facilities are no longer available. 

Is it likely, for example, that many women, or men either, between thirty 
and fifty years of age can get suitable recreation through basketball, tennis, 
or rowing? Suppose they had become habituated to walking, hiking, and 
exploring instead? What are the facilities for physical recreation now 
accessible to our acquaintances in sedentary employments who have only 
moderate incomes? 

Again, are we, as men and women, habituated to take physical recrea- 
tion alone? May our dependence upon fellowship here not be due largely 
to the fact that in youth nearly all sports were not only gregarious, but 
educators insisted on extending the cooperative and competitive condi- 
tions ? 

The vocational, civic, and cultural demands of adult life tax all 
bodily functions severely, sometimes through excessive use, sometimes 
through disuse. Unquestionably, a large part of the physical education 
of the future will consist of purposive .preparation for these contingencies; 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 679 

Doubtless that is what is now intended in what is called physical training ; 
but the tested objectives of that, beyond the standards of physical develop- 
ment now probably reached by the large majority of boys without any 
such training, are ill defined and very conjectural. 

Only "case-group" studies will help us here at present; and, in the 
absence of fuller data, these must be largely hypothetical. A few examples 
will suggest methods of study. 

In a certain suburban high school of fifteen hundred pupils are regularly 
to be found one hundred first-year girls of whom these facts are essentially 
true : they are keen and ambitious ; under heavy "social" stimulation ; and 
destined probably to go through college or normal school and to spend 
some years in teaching or other semi-professionally highly "nerve-strain- 
ing" work. They seem now to lack big muscle development and various 
forms of physical endurance. More than 60 per cent, of these girls will 
marry between twenty-two and thirty years of age. They will find the 
physical strains of motherhood and home-making very severe. 

Knowing the essential characteristics of these girls and their probable 
future, what programs of developmental and conservative physical educa- 
tion should be recommended for them ? Ought we not to be able to do as 
well by them as the Greeks or Teutons did by youths anticipating military 
service? And is a regime of "competitive" basketball for these girls a 
valuable contribution or a man-imitating travesty on right physical develop- 
ment? 

Let us assume, again, in an urban school, one hundred boys of whom 
it is safe to prophesy that they will enter clerical vocations. We desire 
to start at age fourteen building strong and resistant bodies against the 
strains, the rustings, the peculiar infections, of those vocations. How shall 
we proceed? Is football as valuable as scouting? Are "well developed" 
big muscles an asset or a liability ? Highly developed metabolic processes ? 
Obviously, many questions could readily be asked here to which scientific 
hygiene has at present no satisfactory answers, but it is important that 
physical educators should continue to ask them. 

Is physical work in youth — of the "big muscles" — an essential means 
toward adequate physical development for the needs of adult life? We 
do not yet know certainly — but it is inherently probable. Physical play 
is indispensable, but it is a very dififerent thing in process and result from 
physical work. Neither physiologists nor psychologists have given us, as 
yet, sufficient light on these essential dififerences. During human evolu- 
tion, from far back in paleolithic times down to yesterday, it is virtually 
certain that small children played abundantly, adolescents played and 



68o EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

worked (under compulsion) intermittently, and that girls and women 
indulged less in sport and pursued more steadily routine work than did 
boys and men (since the latter must store their energies for the chase and 
the feud). 

With such heredity, it is probable that optimum physical development 
can accrue now only from a regimen in which, from the age of ten to 
eighteen, at least, physical toil in reasonable quantities is interspersed with 
physical play. Farm rearing usually insures such a regimen now. But 
many urban boys, and in still larger measure urban girls, are apt to reach 
adult years without ever having really known physical work. Having in 
mind the endurance and resistances needed by them from thirty to seventy 
years of age, is it not probable that these start adult life under a severe 
handicap? 

FOR SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AND REPORTS 

Angell, E. D. Play (pp. 1-54, The Value of Play and Playgrounds). 

Curtis, H. S. Recreation for Teachers. 

Dresslar, F. B. School Hygiene (see Contents). 

Dudley, G. and Kellor, F. Athletic Games in the Education of Women. 

Ellis, Havelock. The Task of Social Hygiene (Ch. 8, The Problem of 

Sexual Hygiene). 
Gillin, J. L. Poverty and Dependency (Ch. 32, A Socialized Health 

Program) . 
GoLDMARK, J. Fatigue and Efficiency (Ch. 1-14). 
Hall, G. S. Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene (Ch. 6, Play, 

Sports, and Games; Ch. 11, The Education of Girls). 
Hough and Sedgwick, The Human Mechanism (Ch. 16, Hygiene of 

the Human Mechanism). 
Hutchinson, Woods. Preventable Diseases (Ch. 1-3). 
Myerson, a. The Nervous Housewife (Ch. 13, The Future of Women, 

the Home, and Marriage). 
Patrick, G. T. W. Psychology of Relaxation. 
Schreiner, O. Woman and Labor (Ch. 1-3, Parasitism). 
Snedden, D. Problems of Secondary Education (Ch. 24, Problems of 

Physical Education), 
Terman, L. M, The Hygiene of the School Child (Ch. 2, The Physical 

Basis of Education). 



SUGGESTED REFERENCE LISTS FOR COOPERATING LIBRARIES 

I. Essential Sociological References 

Bagehot, W. Physics and Politics. New York, 1887. 

Carver, Thomas N. Essays in Social Jtistice. Cambridge, 1915. 

Clay, H. Economics. New York, 1920. 

CooLEY, Charles H. Social Organization. New York, 1909. 

CooLEY, Charles H. Social Process. New York, 1918. 

Holmes, Samuel J. The Trend of the Race. New York, 192 1. 

Kelsey, Carl. The Physical Basis of Society. New York, 1916. 

Kropotkin, p. Mutual Aid. New York. 

Oppenheimer, Franz. The State. Indianapolis, 1914. 

Ross, Edward A. Principles of Sociology. New York, 1920. 

Ross, Edward A. Social Control. New York, 1901. 

Sims, Newell L. The Rural Community. New York, 1920. 

Smith, Walter R. An Introduction to Educational Sociology. Boston, 1917. 

Todd, Arthur J. Theories of Social Progress. New York, 1918. 

Tufts, James H. Our Democracy. New York, 1917. 

Wells, H. G. Social Forces in England and America. New York, 1914. 



II. Essential Educational References 

BoBBiTT, Franklin. The Curriculum. Boston, 19 18. 

Inglis, Alexander. Principles of Secondary Education. New York, 1918. 
Johnston, Charles H. The Modern High School. New York, 1914. 
Snedden, David. Sociological Determination of Objectives in Education. 

Philadelphia, 1921. 
Snedden, David. Vocational Education. New York, 1920. 
Spencer, Herbert. Education. New York, 1905. 

III. Selected Supplemental Sociological References 

Adams, Brooks. Law of Civilization and Decay. New York, 1903. 
Adams, H. C. Description of Industry. New York, 1918. 
Addams, Jane. Democracy and Social Ethics. New York, 1902. 
Anderson, W. L. The Country Town. New York, 1906. 
Baldwin, James M. Social and Ethical Interpretations. New York, 1899. 
Beard, C. A. American Citizenship. New York, 1916, 

681 



682 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY 

BooKWALTER, JoHN W. Rural versus Urban. New York, 1910. 

Buck, Solon J. The Agrarian Crusade. New Haven, 1920. 

BuTTERFiELD, K. Chapters in Rural Progress. Chicago, 1908. 

CoNKLiN, Edwin. Heredity and Environment. London, 1916. 

Crile, George W. Man— An Adaptive Mechanism. New York, 1916. 

Davenport, Charles. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. New York, 191 1. 

Devine, Edward. Misery and Its Causes. New York, 1909. 

Dewey, John and Tufts, James H. Ethics. New York, 1908. 

Ellis, Havelock. The Task of Social Hygiene. Boston, 1914. 

Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems. New York, 1913. 

GiDDiNGS, Franklin. Elements of Sociology. New York, 1900. 

GiDDiNGS, Franklin. Principles of Sociology. New York, 1896. 

GiLLiN, John L. Poverty and Dependency. New York, 1921. 

GooDSELL, WiLLYSTiNE. A History of the Family as a, Social and Educational 

Institution: New York, 191 5. 
Groos, Karl. The Play of Man. New York, 1901. 
Hanifan, L. J. The Community Center. New York, 1920. 
Harrison, Shelby. Social Conditions in an American City. New York, 1920. 
Hart, Joseph K. Community Organisation. New York, 1920. 
Huntington, Ellsworth. Civilization and Climate. New Haven, 1915. 
James, William. Pragmatism. London, 1907. 

KiDD, Benjamin. Social Evolution. New York and London, 1895. 
Kirkpatrick, Edwin A. The Use of Money. Indianapolis, 19 15. 
Kropotkin, p. Fields, Factories, and Workshops. New York, 1901. 
Lapp, John A. Economics and the Community. New York, 1922. 
McDouGALL, William. An Introdtiction to Social Psychology. Boston, 1918. 
Plunkett, Sir H. The Rural Life Problem of the United States. New 

York, 1911, 
Powers, H. H. The Things Men Fight For. New York, 1917. 
Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives. New York, 1914. 
Riis, Jacob A. The Making of an American. New York, 1917. 
RoBBiNS, Charles L. The School as a Social Institution. Boston, 1918. 
Robinson, James H. The Mind in the Making. New York, 1921, 
Roosevelt, Theodore. American Ideals and Other Essays. New York, 1897. 
Ross, E. A. The Old World in the New. New'York, 1914. 
Simons, A. M. Social Forces in American History. New York, 1911. 
Small, A. W. General Sociology. Chicago, 1905. 

Sparks, E. E. The Expansion of the American People. Chicago, 1900. 
Spencer, Herbert. The Principles of Sociology. New York, 1908. 
Turberville, a. S. and Howe, F. A. Great Britain in the Latest Age. New 

York, 1 92 1. 
Wallas, Graham. The Great Society. New York, 1916, 
Ward, Lester F. Applied Sociology. Boston, 1906. 



SUGGESTED REFERENCE LISTS 683 

Ward, Lester F. Pure Sociology. New York, 1907. 

Wilson, Warren H. Evolution- of the Country Community. Boston, 1912. 

IV. Selected Supplemental Educational References 

Bagley, W. C. Educational Values. New York, 1912. 

Bagley, W. C. The Educative Process. New York, 1906. 

Butler, Nicholas M. The Meaning of Education. New York, 1898. 

Carlton, F. T. Education a^id Industrial Evolution. New York, 1908. 

Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York, 1916. 

Eliot, Charles W. Educational Reform. New York, 1898. 

Hanus, Paul H. A Modern School. New York, 1904. 

Hart, J. K. Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities. New 

York, 1913. 
Johnson, Henry. Teaching of History. New York, 191 5. 
Keith, John A. and Bagley, W. C. The Nation and the Schools. New 

York, 1920. 
Laurie, S. S. Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education. London, 1900. 
Lee, Joseph. Play in Education. New York^ 1915- 
Meriam, Junius L. Child Life and the Curriculum. Yonkers, 1920. 
Monroe, Paul. Textbook in History of Education. New York, 1905. 
Muller-Lyer, F. The History of Social Development. New York, 1921. 
Ogg, F. a. and Beard, C. A. National Governments and the World War. 

New York, 1919. 
O'Shea, M. V. Dynamic Factors in Education. New York, 1906. 
O'Shea, M. V. Social Development and Education. Boston, 1909. 
Scott, Colin A. Social Education. Boston, 1908. 



INDEX 



Esthetic values, 264 

Agricultural colleges, 641 

Agricultural education, 632, 635 ; by the 
home project method, 643; possible 
objectives of, 637 

Agricultural vocations, kinds of, 639; 
statistics of, 634 

Agriculture, technical, in high schools, 
638 

Alpha objectives, 328 

America, a complex society, 5 

American family life, 58 

American small towns, 76 

Anarchists, philosophic, 231 

Appreciations as objectives, 330 

Apprenticeship, decline of, 386 

Arithmetic, values of, 495 

Art appreciations, as aims, 571 ; meth- 
ods of teaching, 575 

Art, functions of, 265 ; in utilization, 
572 . 

Art education, objectives of, 569 

Artificial education, 313 

Arts, graphic and plastic, 567; the prac- 
tical, 591 

Associations, 140; promotional, 147 

Beauty as a social good, 264 
Bibliographies for cooperating libraries, 

681 
Biological sciences, the, 525 
Brookline, Mass., as a community, 79 

Capital, commercialization of, 229 

Case-group method, 336 

Chemistry, 517 

Childhood, public interest in, 273 

Children, subsidized rearing of, 64 

Cities, artificial life of, 97; dynamic 
qualities of, 95 ; growth of, 94. 

Citizenship from the school of life, 400 

Civic activities, mental training for, 562 

Civic case-groups, 410 

Civic education, 538; by means of his- 
tory, 542; in schools, 539; through 
the social sciences, 551 

Civic shortages, 3,6; the basis of civic 
education, 401 

Civic virtues, 408 

Civics in schools, 552; meaning of, 405 



Classic languages, 473 

Climate, adaptation to, 369; effects of, 
172 

Commercial education, 647; present 
practices of, 649 

Commercialization, 226; of social func- 
tions, 227 

Commercial vocations, statistics of, 648 

Commission on the Reorganization of 
Secondary Education, ref. 345, 429 

Community, what is it?, 85 

Community civics, 553 

Communit}' functions, summarized, 78 

Community groups., neighborhood, 68 

Community wealth, 262 

Communities, local, 71 

Communities, primitive, 71 ; provincial 
and national, loi 

Company groups, 48 

Competition, 166, 198, 204; evolution 
of, 206; international, 107; between 
groups, 208 

Competitive processes, 200 

Composition, written, 451 

Conflict, 198, 209; origins of, 209 

Conquest and civilization, 104 

Consumers' arithmetic, 497 

Cooperation, 198, 201, 203; universality 
of, 200 

Cooperative relationships, personal fac- 
tors in, 128 

Correlation, confusing effects of, 444 

Cultural education, 416; problems of, 
426 ; social demand for, 425 

Culture and vocation, 418 

Culture, defined, 421 ; democratization 
of, 424; of primitive man, 419; of so- 
cial groups, 422; training for, 565 

Culture shortages, 36 

Curricula, differentiations within, 355 

Defense, military, 252 
Democracy and conquest, 106 
Democratic tendencies in nations, in 
Democratization, 211, 217; of vocational 

education, 390 
Discussion by parties, 145 
Domination, 167 
Domination and democratization, 211, 

220 



685 



686 



INDEX 



Economic changes, social consequences 

of, 121 

Economic determinism, 45, 122 

Economic development, 120 

Economic disabilities, 220 

Economic efficiency, factors of, 123 

Economic goods, competition for, 1 18 

Economic groups, 49, 115; basic 
sources of, 119; improvement of, 126; 
origins of, 118 

Economic order, current, 119 

Economic well-being, a social value, 258 

Economics in schools, 553 

Education, a means of social efficiency, 
295; as applied science, 34; as direct- 
ed growth, 310; a social process, 30; 
a social function, 29 ; collective re- 
sponsibility for, 307 ; complexity of, 
under modern conditions, 33 ; defini- 
tions of, 298; evolution of, 350; ex- 
pansion of modern, ,357 ;i for com- 
munity life, 89; for culture, 416; for 
family life, 65 ; for family member- 
ship, 429 ; for leisure, 430 ; limitations 
to, 301, 302; medieval, 354; natural 
vs. artificial, 309; objectives of, 309; 
primitive, 351; purposiveness of, 300; 
scope, 305; socialization of, 353; stud- 
ied through sociology, 358 

Educational purpose, distinctions in, 304 

Educational sociology, meaning of, 31 ; 
the need for, 28; the province of, 33; 
what is it?, 23 

Educative process, the total, 327 

Efficiency, social, of nations, no 

English language, how related to Eng- 
lish literature, 490; upkeep vs. new 
powers in, 453 

English language studies, 441 ; conclu- 
sions as to, 455; objectives of, 444; 
specific objectives of, 446 

English literature, 481 

Environment, geographic, 170 

Epicurean valuations, 248 

Equalization, 217 

Eugenics, proposals for, 63 

Evolution of education, 350 

Evolution of environmental adapta- 
tions, 176 

Exchange, improvements in, 127 

Exploitation, 215 

Family as a social group, 55 

Family betterment, problems of, 60 

Family groups, 52 

Family life, degenerative influences on, 
56; modern tendencies in, 56; prob- 
lems of, 62; progressive tendencies 
in, 59 



Family limitation, 58 

Federate social relationships in cities, 
97 

Fellowship associations, 151 

Fellowship, as a social value, 270; 
cravings for, 87, 152; democracy of, 
221 ; in modern communities, 86 ; in 
rural societies, 153; rural, 154 

Fellowship groupings, 149; institutional, 
153 

Foreign language, 452 

Functioning of education, 340 

Gangs, youthful, 143 

General science, 513 

Geographic environment, 170; control 
of, 174; factors of environment, 175 

Geography, 527 ; how much ?, 532 ; ob- 
jectives of, 530; objectives of, in so- 
cial education, 536 

Governmental controls, origins of, 194 

Government, based on conquest, 105 ; 
support of, 109 

Grammar, place of, 452 

Graphic arts, 567 

Greek, educational values of, 475 

Group membership, 15 

Group versus the individual, 285 

Groups, socially efficient, 281 

Growth objectives in education,, 309 

Guidance, vocational, 606 

Happiness, an end of life, 283 

Health as a social value, 257 

Health education, 67s 

History, as a school subject, 547; what 
is it?, 545 

History studies, the, 538; in civic edu- 
cation, 542 

Home economics, 603 

Home economics education, 652 

Homemaking education, 65,1 

Homemaking and related vocations, sta- 
tistics of, 663 

Home project method, in agricultural 
education, 643 ; in vocational home- 
making, 656 

Home self-service courses, 602 

Humanistic studies, the, 476 

Humanities, the, 476 

Household arts, 599 

Immortality of the soul, 285 
Impersonal social groups, 46 
Individual, the, in the nation, 107; the 

strength of the, 183 
Individuality, 184 
Individuation, 181, 184 
Industrial arts, the, 591 



INDEX 



687 



Industrial education, 665 

Industrial vocations, statistics of, 666_ 

Inequalities, among men, 213 ; artificial, 
215; natural, 214 

Instincts, the social, 163; of competi- 
tion, 206 

Institutionalization, 223 

Institutions, advantages of, 224; origins 
of, 224 

International competition, 107 

Invention, progress of, 178 

Junior high schools, mathematics in,_ 500 
Justice, as a social value, 254; instincts 
for, 254 

Kindergartens, 325 

Kinship groups, 48 

Knovvrledge as a social good, 263 

Language, a second, 452 

Languages, the ancient, 473 ; modern, 

459 

Large groups, conflicts among, 195 

Large social groups, 16 

Latin, 473 ; educational values of, 474 

Laws, multiplication of, 230 

Legalization, 229 

Leisure, education for, 349, 430 

Library lists, 681 

Literature and life, 488 

Literature, English, 481 ; in schools, 483, 
objectives of the study of, 485; rec- 
reative values of, 487; spiritual values 
of, 487 

Machine-driven transport, 121 

Machinery, age of, 178 

Man, as a highly domesticated creature, 

366 
Man's, dependence on environment, 175 ; 

nature, a plastic thing, 289; physical 

heritage, 364 
Manual arts courses, 626 
Manual training, 593 
Marriage, democratization of, 222 
Material environment, 172 
Mathematics, 493 ; aims of, 503 ; in 

junior high schools, 500; vocational, 

499 
Mechanical revolution, the, 120 
Membership, variability of, in social 

groups, 43 
Mental discipline, as a general objective, 

433 ; the "panacea" theory of, 434 
Mental sciences, the, 558 
Mental training, general, 560 
Mind, the trained, 560 



Modern cities, 94 

Modern democracy, 106 

Modern language study, 459; conclu- 
sions, 469 

Modern language teaching, superficiality 
of, 463; problems of, 464; aims of, 
466 

Monogamous familj^, the, 20 

Moral education, aims of, 398; in civic 
education, 541 

Morality as a social value, 254 

Multiplication of numbers, 44 

Multiplication, racial, 284 

Municipal communities, 92 

Municipal socialism, 98 

Music, objectives of, 582; social func- 
tions of, 583 

Mutual aid, 199 

National community groups, lOi 

Nationalism, problems of, 112 • 

Nationalities, submerged, 143 

Nationality and education, 32 

Nations, functions of, 108; origins of, 
106; strength of, 108 

Nations and governments, 109 

Nations and individuals, 107 

Nations and provinces, 103 

Natural education, 309 

Natural learning, 312 

Natural resources in economic effi- 
ciency, 124 

Natural sciences, the, 512 

Neighborhood communities, analyzed, 
71 ; decline of, 73 

Neighborhood community groups, 68 

New England villages, 72 

Objectives of education, classified, 328, 
344; miscellaneous, 429 

Objectives, case group method of de- 
riving, 336 ; differentiation of dissimi- 
lar, 334; in powers of performance, 
330 ; for the several grades, 331 ; of 
schools, 324 

Oligarchy, 213, 216 

Oral reading, why teach?, 448 

Panaceas, educational, 356 
Parties, 140; kinds of, 145 
Party groups, 49, 144; origins of, 142 
Patriotism and nationalisrn, 113 
People, the making of a, 3 
Physical basis of man's life, 364 
Physical conditions, artificial, in mod- 
ern life, 366 
Physical education, 360, 672 ; specific ob- 
jectives of, 675 
Physical sciences, the, 517 



688 



INDEX 



Physical well-being as a social value, 
256 

Physics, 517 

Play, values of, 319; varieties of, 319 

Play and work as unlike processes, 318 

Play-level education, 315 

Political government, 194 

Political groups, 48 

Political parties, 144 

Populations, possible increases of, 289 

Posture, the upright, 366 

Practical arts, the, 591; in schools, 593; 
agricultural projects, 639 

Primitive communities, 71 

Production by power, effects of, on ap- 
prenticeship, 387 

Productivity, a social good, 262 

Progeny as a social value, 271 

Progress, 276; problems of defining, 286 

Projective objectives, 328 

Project method in civic education, 555 

Provincial community groups, loi 

Publicity, 232 

Public ownership, 128 

Public service instead of commercial 
service, 228 

Pure sociology, 19 

Purposes of education, classified, 347 

Race as a social value, 271 
Reading, objectives of, 447 
Reformers, the educational, 355 
Religion, a means of social control, 268; 

functions of, 136; the place of, 267 
Religions, divisive effects of, 268 
Religious adjustments, 136; beliefs, 134; 

education, 138; instincts, 133; values, 

Religious groups, 130; origins of, 132 
Religiousness, as a social value, 266 
Righteousness, social, 254 
Rural neighborhoods, American, TJ 
Rural schools, practical arts in, 597 

School, the, and the individual, 185 ; life 
and health, 676; subjects, social func- 
tioning of, 342 

Schools as agencies of artificial educa- 
tion, 314 

Science and invention, progress of, 178 

Sciences, general, 513; the mental, 558; 
the physical, 517; the social, in civic 
education, 551 

Science studies, the natural, 512 

Sectarian parties, 146 

Security, as a social value, 250; desires 
for, 252 ; in excess, 253 

Selfhood, the struggle for, 183 



Sexual looseness, 58 

Sham vocational education, 627 

Shortages, civic, cultural, vocational, 36 

Silent reading, 449 

Sociability, agencies of, 152; groupings, 
151 

Social control, 189 ;, improvements in, 
196; the means of, 193; origins of, 
190; the price of, 192 

Social democracy, 219 

Social economy, 21 

Social education, defined, 397; sociolog- 
ical foundations of, 395 

Social efficiency, 276; of cities, 96; of 
nations, no; scope of, 280; through 
education, 295 ; ultimate goals of, 283 

Social environment, how composed, 8 

Social evolution of man, 71 

Social forces, the, 159, 163 

Social groups, 9; classified, 48; ex- 
plained, 13, 42; illustrated, 39; large, 
16; types of, 47 

Social improvement, processes of, 20 

Social inheritance, the, 44; the eco- 
nomic, 124 

Social instincts, the, 163 

Social order in economic efficiency, 124 

Social origins of man, 16 

Social processes, 159, 165 

Social products, 282 

Social purposes of education, 304; of 
private education, 32 

Social relationships, personal, 86 

Social sciences, for civic education, 551 

Social science studies, during the 20th 
century, 19 

Social values, 234 ; definition of, 243 ; 
kinds of, 242 ; miscellaneous, 245 ; 
origins of, 238; the major, 250 

Social v/ell-being, promotion of, 30 

Socialization, 168, 181 ; of education, 
353 ; of school life, 152 

Socializing the individual, 187 

Sociological diagnosis of social defects, 

35 
Sociology, as applied knowledge, 19; d 

fined, 17 ; the science of human so' 

ties, 17; what is it?, 11 
Societies defined, 39; the study of. 
Society, America, a complex, 7 
Soil, effects of, on social groups, 172 
Soul, immortality of the, 285 
Specialization and democracy, 220 
Spelling, 450 
Standardization, 232 
Standards, collective control of, 231 
Stocks, human, 273 
Stoic valuations, 248 
Struggle for existence, the, 209 



MAR 11334 



INDEX 



689 



Upgrading schools, 390 

Urban communities, 92; environments, 

99 

Urban environments, 99 

Values, aesthetic, 264; gradations in, 
246; in civilized societies, 241; in- 
dividual, 239; social, 234; ultimate,, 
240 

Variabilities as basis of case group 
method, 338 

Village communities, modern, 75 

Village community, the, 72 

Vocational arithmetic, 497 

Vocational education, 125, 622; begin- 
nings of, 626 ; current movement for, 
623 ; defined, 383 ; economic bases of, 
382; in relation to general education, 
388, 629; sociological foundations of. 



376 ; universality of, 38,' : varieties of, 

Vocational guidance, 606 ; economic as- 
pects of, 611 

Vocational schools, origins cf, 384 

Vocational shortages, 37 

Vocations, for mature vv^orkers, 389; 
trained minds in, 561 

Voters, education of, 402 

Wealth as a social good, '6: 

Women, decorative, 372 ; physical im- 
pairment of, 63 ; wage-earning by, 
62 

Work, as means of physical dt^velop- 
ment, 370; effects of, on individuals, 
127 ; nervous, strains of, 372 

Work-level education, 315 

Written English, 450 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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